There's always more taxpayer money to flush and burn...
Stick to the facts. Otherwise, you look foolish.
UPW ping!
Yeah, but they’re cool. I have a miniature turbine spinning away on my window sill at work.
When I was in Germany a few weeks ago.
There are wind turbines EVERYWHERE.
And maybe half of them are working at any given time...
If you look at the chart for land-based wind, it comes out cheaper or equal than all but NG and Hydro
Seems pretty good on land if that is accurate
Wind turbines, privately owned, operated, and maintained on farms or ranches can be practical.
It’s a US Govt study for crying out loud.
If they are comparing, say a coal plant at 100% vs. a wind plant at 100% they can get these numbers.
But a coal plant can generate 90% of the time, a wind plant perhaps 30% of the time as it is not consistently windy. So the capital cost has to be paid off at a rate 3x higher than the coal plant.
Time is money. It takes three years to generate the equivalent megawatt hours as the coal plant. Factor that into the cost and wind becomes a joke.
The true lifecycle cost of nuclear power is misrepresented on that chart... it’s a money pit of corporate welfare government handouts like you would not imagine.
I have often driven by the wind farms that blight the landscapes in the Midwest and seen not a single windmill blade moving. Wind turbine not only are dependent on the wind to blow, but the wind must be in a narrow range of speeds. Too slow and no electricity is generated despite turning blades. Too fast and the windmills must be shut down least they self destruct. During the winter the hydraulic systems governing the windmills must be electrically heated. Windmills can also be shut down by icing of the blades. At theoretical best no more that about 30% of the wind energy can be captured and real averages are in the 20-25% range. For reliable and cost effective electricity production windmills are a joke.
It all depends on the goals.
If the goal is to generate electricity, yeah, they’re a big fail.
But, if the goal is to generate liberal self-righteousness, they’re a big success!
They may be referring to the road network. In waste areas (e.g. Texas) that's probably no big deal, but in the east they generally have to clear forests.
The US consumes 4 quads of electricity in a year. If the PTC were applied to every electric source on the chart it would cost 104 billion dollars in a government subsidy for electricity, something that really works well.
According to Herritage.org the total spending for welfare was almost 10 times that at 949 billion in 2014, and that's paying for people who don't work.
Each form of electrical production has advantages and disadvantages. I think they are all pretty nifty and I've liked wind turbines for 40 years.