Posted on 08/11/2011 7:38:56 AM PDT by MichCapCon
The federal governments Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that conventional coal is less expensive than wind in its latest study of the cost of energy. Yet, a Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) study in February found that coal in Michigan was 22 percent more expensive than what the federal government states as the average U.S. coal cost.
Some experts say that the reason for the discrepancy lies with an environmental agenda that seeks to artificially increase the cost of burning coal for electricity generation by requiring greater restrictions on its production of carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas.
For example, the Michigan Public Service Commission found the cost of coal to be $133 per megawatt hour, considerably more expensive than the average national cost of $109 per megawatt hour for a similar type plant. Paul Proudfoot, director of the MPSCs Electric Reliability Division, said a big reason for the higher cost was that the MPSC study tacked a carbon tax onto the price of coal. Yet no such tax exists either at the state or national level. According to Proudfoot, the MPSC added it because of an assumption that such a tax will pass.
(Excerpt) Read more at michigancapitolconfidential.com ...
Those huge fiberglass/composite blades can’t the kind of stress a smaller blade can.
Prosperous peasants build roads and houses and clutter up the view.
The ruling-class swells deserve to live in a pristine Walden paradise, and the sooner the peasants starve the sooner they get to have it.
Ahhhh that’s what it is. Geez what a waste of money. At least coal and water flow, as in a dam is reliable. Wind is just hit and miss.
They want to fight "climate change" by extracting large amounts of energy from the very thin layer where all evaporation takes place, the origin of weather. Advocating a medicine worse the disease is indicative of a hidden motive, hidden because it is evil and cannot withstand light.
I beleive distributed smaller units is a better route. The Helix Wind S322 unit (http://www.helixwind.com/en/index.php) is optimized for low wind speed and responds well to variable wind direction.
Units can be placed at 6 ft. spacing if you stagger the height, giving you 10kW of nominal generation in a 24 ft. line.
The problem with photovoltaics is -- as the notorious greeniac and demagogue Barry Commoner drummed away about -- there is no economy of scale. In order to generate more electricity, more cells have to be added, covering more and more space. The cost of maintaining the arrays just rises arithmetically (to borrow a phrase from Malthusians). Yes, they can be installed anywhere -- covering existing homes' roofs, for example -- but their 15 or 20 percent efficiency is a peak number, and greatly reduced by time of day (not much going out at midnight), cloud cover, and whether or not a windstorm ripped a whole mess of them down.
Coal is a nearly perfect energy source for modern civilization, "wind" is a joke.
Cost doesn't really come into it.
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