As of Jan. 1, 600,000 daily train passengers have been traveling completely carbon neutral, according to an announcement from the Netherlands principal passenger railway operator, NS. one of their national railway companies, Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), 700 MW offshore windfarm near the town of Borssele. As of January 1, all electric passenger trains on the Dutch rail network have been run on wind energy, according to a statement from operator NS (via EcoWatch ). It's a bit of smoke and mirrors but it helps to subside more expensive forms of generation. [5] The first of these, the 429 MW Noordoostpolder wind farm was already partially deployed by year end 2015 whilst the 600 MW Gemini offshore wind farm was commissioned in 2017. As of January 1, all trains in the Netherlands now run entirely on wind power (that is to say electricity generated by wind farms, not masts and sails). However, early successes in rolling out the clean energy program . Nevermind the entirety of it. And enjoy 30c/kWh household electric rates, as in Denmark and Germany, without there being one iota of measurable benefit to the planet? Offsets. RE fans should understand that present mainstream RE technologies ( mostly PV and wind) require considerable real estate and in our small island one cannot travel very far without having a wind farm in view. But in reality, the commercial parties are making a double killing: getting free money throughout the FIT contract (paid for 100% by households) *and* profiting from the PR value of presenting themselves as selflessly investing their own money in wind and solar energy for the planet. The historical land of windmills is leading . I am told Biogas is not actually allowed in our pipeline system. I cant help feeling that inexperienced power traders at NS will have been taken to the cleaners at the expense of passengers. NO. Once its in the network, there are three main options for getting the electricity to the trains themselves: Youve probably noticed at least one of these options on your rail journeys. Yeap. https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/5329/Bothi_BEEThesis.pdf;sequence=1, When wind power is fed into a grid it becomes inextricably mixed with all the vibrating electrons from other generation sources to the point where there is no way of knowing where any power taken from the grid came from.. http://elering.ee/cross-border-physical-flows/ These. The claim by the Dutch railway network, Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), is almost entirely a sleight of hand. The rationale is: If the Dutch railways sourced 100% of the 1.4 tWh of energy they needed each year from within the Netherlands, this would decrease availability and increase prices of green power for other parties. So pick your choice Half of this electricity comes from the Netherlands, and the other half is imported from Sweden, Finland, and Belgium. The Netherlands national railway company, NS, has announced all of its electric passenger trains (not the freight trains) are now 100% powered by wind energy. Snopes and the Snopes.com logo are registered service marks of Snopes.com. You can't pull line between your house and a windmill and hope you have 100% power for all the time. TL;DR Dutch trains run on natural gas and coal power, not wind power. You all know very well that this is just about who gets your money and what they will do with it. There is a way of saying this, which characterises this behaviour, but I cant write it here because it is not politically correct too bad. Even the two Dutch wind farms with which NS contracts directly for wind power, Noordoostpolder and Luchterduinen, are tied generally to the Dutch grid and not tied directly into the NS rail system. [61], In 2008, a second, somewhat larger offshore wind farm was built: the Princess Amalia Wind Farm, consisting of 60 Vestas V80 2MW turbines totaling 120 MW, sufficient to power 125,000 homes and help the Netherlands cut 225,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. According to a government web page ( now removed!) More than wind and solar together right now. Electricity is electricity, electron charge transfer. They hope to reduce the energy used per passenger by a further 35% by 2020 compared with 2005. So, as you can see, your silly view of the frrrench domestic heating habits are wrong, probably based on indoctrination from greenpiss or the like. Not big money, even on 100TWh. Calculated value from total installed nameplate capacity and actual electricity generation. Half of that total is expected to come from foreign sources in Scandinavia and elsewhere, with the rest generated in the Netherlands. This page was last edited on 14 January 2023, at 23:49. What Was It Like When The Universe First Created More Matter Than Antimatter? All day so far. Sign up for our email newsletter! The electrons that run the electrified portion of the NS system come from many sources, including wind, but also from coal, natural gas, and nuclear. When challenged on its claim, NS clarified that only the electrified portion of its system runs completely on wind power. This year, Dutch commuters ditched fossil fuels to power their country's trains on 100% wind energy - and it's a grand idea that's catching on the world over. This material may not be reproduced without permission. Homer-Dixon did not write this viral quote, but he did comment on it in a May 2018 blog post entitled: "No . 2015 was a record year for the countrys wind industry according to the Global Wind Energy Council, turbines capable of generating 586 MW of electricity were installed between January and December. A little more than a tenth of all electricity consumed in the Netherlands comes from wind power, some of which is imported. Google will allegedly power all its operations with renewable energy this year by doing exactly the same thing. If there was a utility providing KiteGen power I would sign up with them. But a recent piece of news about electricity caught my attention. Eneco and NS said on a joint website that around 600,000 passengers daily are the first in the world to travel thanks to wind energy. NS claims 100% wind power because it has a contract with various wind farms to produce enough energy to power its rail system, but this is just an accounting transaction, writes author Roger Andrews. Such as happened earlier this year in the UK when we had several days of around only 300MW of total metered wind power. World-famous for their picturesque windmills, the Netherlands has always had a love affair with wind energy. A NS train. Plus, it turns out that about half the electricity NS uses to power its rail system comes from outside of the Netherlands. Do the Netherlands trains really run on http://elering.ee/cross-border-physical-flows/, http://ast.lv/eng/power_system/current_situation_in_power_system/state_of_power_system/, http://www.litgrid.eu/index.php/sistemos-duomenys/79, Antidotes were hard to find this week as one cheering message after another was debunked only Positive News was buoyant | C 3000: antidote to gloom, International Energy Agency Electricity Production Statistics for OECD Countries 2014 2016 | Blogging about energy and transitioning to clean energy, Drone Strike on Saudi Arabia Knocks out 5% of Global Oil Supplies, Grazing, desertification and climate change. Bach supplies data for Belgium, which should be a close analogy, and Figure 4 shows Belgian wind generation for September 2014: Figure 4: Belgian wind generation, September 2014, With an installed capacity of around 1850MW in this month the overall wind capacity factor was 11% and there were a number of occasions on which wind generation fell effectively to zero for hours on end. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Ad Meskens. For high-speed trains, overhead wires are the better choice. If it was based on the former there would a strong possibility that these companies could be oversubscribed with customers who may not receive true renewable energy when the wind does not blow. Berlin Neighborhood to Experiment With Eliminating Parking Spaces, High PFAS Levels in Norwegian Arctic Ice Pose New Risk to Wildlife, Report: London Ultra Low Emissions Zone Succeeded in Curbing Harmful Air Pollution, Studies Find Louisiana Government Helped Create Cancer Alley, Prestigious Engineering Prize Awarded to Pioneering Solar Team, Leaked Video Shows Sediment Release in Deep-Sea Mining Test, After Record-Breaking 2022, China Told to Brace for Another Year of Weather Extremes, Seed Saving 101: Everything You Need to Know. The historical land of windmills is leading the charge in wind energy development. Train tickets for international journeys can be purchased from NS International. The Dutch government has set a target of 6,000 MW nameplate capacity of onshore wind power by 2020 (not met, as per the data above) and 4,450 MW of offshore wind power by 2023. It feels to many like progress. In contrast to onshore wind farms, almost all turbines by January 2017 were situated in just a few large wind farms. (Although Eneco, NSs wind power procurer, claims that its wind farm portfolio guarantees sufficient capacity to cover such eventualities . [19] In July 2016, the first two stages of offshore wind farm development for a combined 700 MegaWatt capacity in a water area near Borssele was awarded to DONG Energy at a price of 7.27 Euro cent per kilowatt hour for 15 years. Temporarily, they might even have a surplus to sell. The city also gets about a third of its power from a large biomass plant. Thanks for the correction Lars. The Dutch railways network (NS) started using wind energy generated by the turbines owned by electric company Eneco two years ago when they signed a ten-year agreement. The electrons essentially vibrate in place at 60 Hz. Stuart Overall, the Netherlands has over 2,000 wind turbines spread across the country. You know all that and simply fabricate a problem where there is non. Active 2020. Therefore, entities enter into power purchase agreements, PPAs, with various other entities that produce, or resell energy, such as electric utilities. For offshore wind a new system of tendering is under development. The actual amount of green energy produced is unaffected.. What Is (And Isn't) Scientific About The Multiverse. The fund is paid for by adding a surcharge to household electricity bills. Imports from the German grid, however, will contain about 14% wind power, although not wind power that NS has contracted for. It seems small compared with our renewables subsidies in the UK, which are of the order fo 150-450 times as big per MWh. NS and Eneco first announced their plan of a wind-powered railway in 2015 in order to drastically slash train ride emissions. Since 1 January, 100% of our trains are running on wind energy. The headline: Netherlands Trains Now Running on 100% Wind Power. Hughes did write that some windmills might not recoup their energy-construction costs, but he didn't assert, as the meme implied, that no windmills will ever generate as much energy as was invested in building them. The concept of net energy must be applied to renewable sources of energy, such as windmills and photovoltaics. If its a less busy line, some of the electricity is stored in batteries on the train. Rail networks source this electricity from the grid, and just like for our homes, its transmitted to them via high-voltage lines. As his statements were presented in that meme, Homer-Dixon appeared to have asserted that windmills never produce as much energy as is expended in building them: The quotations selectively employed in the meme were taken from Homer-Dixon's 2009 book Carbon Shift: How Peak Oil and the Climate Crisis Will Change Canada (and Our Lives). Consumers in NL can choose suppliers that deliver 100% renewable, or 100% wind, or 100% dutch generated wind, etc. Only the Guardian has seen fit to publish a correction: An earlier version said all Dutch trains were now 100% powered by wind-generated electricity, according to the national railway company NS. You may opt-out by. The supply of wind power to the Dutch grid will also not be constant. The 129 MW Eneco Luchterduinen wind farm is located 23km off the coast between Zandvoort and Noordwijk cities in the Netherlands. Fossil fuel-fired power plants produced over 80% of the electricity in the Netherlands, mainly natural gas (42%) and coal (35%). That would meet approximately 75% of the countries electricity needs. It is just another way for RE politicians to bamboozle the lay public and keep the green mythology alive. The Nuclear Humanist 1.75K subscribers 40 Dislike Share 814 views Jul 23, 2017 The Dutch Railway Corporation. New wind farm deployment is based on the SER agreement that describes a plan for five years of tendering 700 MW per year. An Eneco and NS joint website. Instead of trains recovering energy for their own use, any excess power is directed to a centralized bank of lithium-ion batteries. This was 2015 data, so the wind fraction seems to have gone up from 7% to 10% but coal is really powering those trains at least 3x more than wind hey, coal powered trains, where have I heard that before? The Netherlands imports wind power basically because its falling behind its EU renewable energy targets. What the Netherlands gets when it imports it is the energy mix on the German grid. Plus, it turns out that about half the electricity NS uses to power its rail system comes from outside of the Netherlands. Surprisingly, even the electricity is sourced from windmill electric generato. "Carbon Shift: How Peak Oil and the Climate Crisis Will Change Canada (and Our Lives) Paperback." It goes back to the start of 2016, and includes the Netherlands as well as Belgium and the Nordic countries (and Germany) that NS claim to be supplied by. Railway Gazette reports that NS records about 1.2 million passenger-journeys per day, with an annual energy requirement for 1.2 billion kWh. Good for saving valuable hydrocarbons for something more useful than burning them, and they really can supply all my electricity 24/7 that way. heavyweather~ Im sure you can link us to sites which prove your point. NS claims 100% wind power because it has a contract with various wind farms to produce enough energy to power its rail system, but this is just an accounting transaction. remarkably consists of wind turbines with just 2 blades, manufactured by Nedwind, the 18 turbines have a combined nominal power of 18 MW.[30]. As Brightvibes noted, a decreasing and relatively small number of Dutch trains are still running on diesel. [14] A second hand market for turbines also exists, which could grow as older turbines are replaced by larger newer ones. The best of EcoWatch right in your inbox. The other half comes from newly built wind farms in . The virtue signalling fools at NS might then undertsand the impact of intermittent supplies. Passing through the gates without traveling, Forgetting to check in or out and requesting refunds, Sustainable accessibility of the Netherlands, More information about NS buses that run on HVO. So the standard is that 100% renewable utilities buy or produce same amount of 100% renewable electricity they sell. 90/month for the typical 3 person household. Produced at least 19 models at 250, 750, 1500, 2000, 2300, 2500, 2600, 3000, 3600, 3800, 4000 and 4500kW. * Just an FYI, this official infographic shows that the scheme saves 1.4 billion kWh of electricity, which they say is the same as whats used by ALL of Amsterdams residents. In total, NS consumes around 1.2 TWh of electricity to power its trains. Produced at least 14 models of 100. Whilst there are a growing number of large onshore wind farms in Holland, most of the onshore farms in 2015 consisted of a large number of small wind farms, including many single installation turbines as well as farms of between 110 turbines. Eneco has made a point . France has an even bigger problem with energy poverty even though her supposedly cheaper power. The fun would be that trains would soon be blocking the lines as power production fell. [62], Installed land-based wind capacity (MW) by. Since Lithuania has a chronic power shortage the flow normally goes North-South. There are very little poor people in Germany. In fact, an investigation by Energy Matters finds that the electrified portion of NS mainly runs on electricity derived from coal and natural gas. Of course, weve seen headlines of this type before. The role of the third (or conductor) rail is to ensure that the electricity is always directly available, so its installed alongside, or in between, the pair of running rails (Keep an eye out for it when youre next on an underground train). I dont mind buying 100% renewable energy for my house ( I have got a small 6kw wind turbine which has supplied me for over 10 years) if it is the same price as normal electricity but I would not pay a premium for it as some suppliers charge. Thatd give us a consumption figure for the city of around 1.5 billion kWh. In fact, he allowed that a windmill situated at a good location could pay back the energy costs of creating it in under three years, but that aspect was omitted from the memed version of his quote: The concept of net energy must be applied to renewable sources of energy, such as windmills and photovoltaics. This is the cause of the very bright, blue-white spark you sometimes see near the third rail, as well as flickering carriage lights. Over the course of this year the average will be around 11%, equal to wind powers share of the Netherlands annual grid electricity consumption. Produced at least 12 models of 2000, 4000, 4500, and 5000kW. [5] In 2020 wind power provided 11.54% of the Dutch electricity generation (see table above) while solar power provided an additional 7.25% for a combined 18.79% - easily meeting the target without taking other renewable sources into account, even though the target for onshore wind capacity was not met. Wind power now supplies about 10% of Belgiums electricity, so power imported from the Belgian grid will be about 10% wind. And how does NS justify this lesser claim? The question is: how long must a windmill generate energy before it creates more energy than it took to build it? Deregulation Is Still Wrong for Consumers. All Dutch electric trains are now powered by wind energy, the national railway company NS has said . Harried Dutch commuters may not be entirely cognisant of the fact . See the table below for the current situation. If the train line is a busy one, with small gaps between scheduled trains, the electricity produced by one helps to power the very next one that comes along. The T1 standard relates to telecommunications. These newer and larger wind farms are making use of some of the largest wind turbines available, in particular in the case of Noordoostpolder the Enercon E-126 7500kW wind turbine, the largest onshore turbine available at that time. Julian Turner gets the inside track on the unique collaboration from Michel Kerkhof, account manager at Eneco. These sites are also surveyed centrally by the government allowing developers to avoid costly and multiple surveys.[11]. The Dutch railway folks have PPAs to buy energy only from renewable energy producers, and thus claim, our passenger trains run on renewable energy, but fail to add on a contract basis. All renewable energy gets paid the FIT out of the so-called SDE budget. http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/interconnectors.png. This passage was written by David Hughes. NS first announced their target for a wind-powered train fleet back in 2015, but they've hit their target a year earlier than planned - way ahead of their 2018 goal. So technically, the government is not paying for the FITs.. Roger, that map isn`t quite updated. The Same Reason You Would Study Anything Else, The (Mostly) Quantum Physics Of Making Colors, This Simple Thought Experiment Shows Why We Need Quantum Gravity, How The Planck Satellite Forever Changed Our View Of The Universe. The construction of these wind farms along with others in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Finland helped NS and Eneco to hit their target so far ahead of schedule. A two-megawatt windmill contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes of iron ore, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons. The rest is supplied by wind and solar power, which contribute about a fifth of the citys power. The real electricity they use is of course no more or less green than other companies on the same grid use. People making this claim are simply propagandists. NS operates about 5,500 train trips a day. Yes, they are called dwarves, or possibly hobbits. NS has signed a contract with Eneco to guarantee the supply of this electricity. The truth is that its impossible to determine the source of electrons actually moving NS trains down the track. Of all electricity consumed in the Netherlands NS ), 700 MW offshore windfarm near town! Blocking the lines as power production fell Netherlands trains now running on 100 power! Flow normally goes North-South our Lives ) Paperback. our trains are running wind. 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