R C Macaulay wrote:
The Houston Chronicle article today kinda disputes claims regarding the idea of using windmills. The power produced ain't worth the power to produce without heavy subsidies.
This is bunk. First, the wind power subsidies are modest compared to the tax breaks (depletion allowances and so on) for oil, gas, nuclear and coal. Second, government support funding for R&D in coal and oil is far higher than for wind. Third, coal is subsidized at infinitely higher rates than wind power: it costs at least 20,000 lives per year. If the families of the victims were compensated for their loss at the normal rates, coal would cost far more than wind or any other source of energy.
Add in the costs of global warming and there isn't enough money in the world to pay for coal-fired electricity.
Also reports that a norther blew in one day and the wind farm output dropped so low that it upset the grid and almost caused a major blackout.
This sort of thing happens with conventional generators too. They drop off line suddenly because of an equipment failure or inclement weather.
Some third of the big mills are down for repairs at any one time. Nobody has reliable figures on real operating cost cuz the whole business is sorta off the books.. well... kinda..
That is complete and utter bunk. Detailed information on all generators types is kept and it has been analyzed in detail by the power companies, EPRI, the DoE and many others. The notion that a third of wind turbines are normally down for maintenance is preposterous.
This is obviously anti-wind-energy propaganda. I expect it was written by coal industry flacks, who are also busy behind the scenes in the Congress trying to get legislation passed to ban the use of wind energy. Wind now produces ~1% of U.S. power (2% of the coal market) so things are getting ugly.
You should apply some common sense to what you read in the newspapers. Reporters have little technical knowledge and they are often misled by industry flacks. Ask yourself: how likely is it that power companies would not keep track of wind turbine performance? How likely is it that power companies worldwide would be building the equivalent of two nuclear power plants per year in wind energy, but it is actually not cost effective? Of course in the U.S. we spend billions on ethanol, which is an energy sink and therefore not cost-effective, but that is nothing more that a gift to OPEC and Big Agriculture. No government or auto manufacturer is gearing up to power a significant fraction of U.S. automobiles on ethanol. No one knowledgeable about energy seriously maintains that ethanol can have any impact, other than to fleece the taxpayers and destroy the environment. Even Time magazine has noticed that it is con job.
- Jed
