Safe, reliable, clean, and politically incorrect.
Posted on 04/22/2008 4:26:58 PM PDT by neverdem
Who knew a “free” source of energy could be so expensive?
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) recently estimated that billions of dollars in investment will be needed to transmit wind-generated electricity from the areas of Texas most suitable for wind generation — West Texas and the Panhandle — to the areas of the state that need energy the most — the I-35 corridor and the upper Gulf Coast. These costs will be borne by Texas ratepayers. How did this happen?
Subsidies, incentives, and renewable energy mandates have paved the way for Texas’ wind-energy boom. Today, Texas leads the nation in installed wind-power capacity, adding 1,708 megawatts (MW) in 2007, bringing its total to 4,446 MW by the end the year. California is a distant second, with 63 MW added in 2007 and a total of 2,439 MW by year’s end.
According to the Energy Information Administration, wind’s percentage of total U.S. net generation was 0.44 percent in 2005, 0.65 percent in 2006, and 0.77 percent in 2007; from 1993 to 2007, wind’s average percentage of total net generation was 0.25 percent. In Texas, wind accounted for 2 percent of total generation in 2007.
Robust wind power expansion is expected, as Texas’ Senate Bill 20 (2005) mandated 5,880 MW of renewable energy by 2015 and set a 10,000-MW target for 2025. To this end, $700 million went into new wind Texas farms in January, thanks in part to government subsidies.
In addition to generous federal assistance — namely a 2 cents/kWh production tax credit and five-year, double-declining balance accelerated depreciation for wind-generating equipment — the state of Texas entices wind developers with a franchise tax exemption to manufacturers, sellers, or installers of wind devices; a corporate deduction from the state’s franchise tax for renewable energy sources; and a 100-percent property tax exemption on the appraised value of an on-site wind power generating device. But even with these federal and state subsidies, electricity from wind is more expensive per kilowatt-hour than that generated by fossil fuels.
ERCOT’s estimates for transmitting West Texas wind energy, under four different scenarios, range from $3.78 billion to $6.28 billion. ERCOT estimated costs by using as-the-crow-flies distances for transmission cables. Thus, transmission costs were estimated using a best-case-scenario approach and, as such, should be considered the absolute (and unlikely) minimums. Add to this ERCOT’s estimates of $410 million to $1.03 billion for connecting wind generation to the new collection substations.
Additionally, ERCOT’s transmission-cost estimates do not include right-of-way costs or the costs of building transmission stations, which will be passed through to consumers, in the form of higher electric bills.
Wind energy proponents extol wind as free, safe, and clean, but these characterizations miss the point. Energy users expect reliability, and challenges dot the path from wind to electric grid to energy consumer.
#ad#For wind turbines to produce power, the wind must blow. Because the wind does not blow constantly, wind turbines produce a fraction of their potential generating capacities. Furthermore, winds blows the least during the summer months when electricity is needed the most. ERCOT relies on just 8.7 percent of wind power’s capacity when determining available power during peak summer hours. Also, due to wind’s intermittency, those relying on wind farms must rely on conventional power sources to back up their supply.
Wind’s variability and its lack of correlation with peak demand highlight a major challenge for wind energy: Presently, there is no adequate storage system for wind-generated electricity — though progress is being made on updating older technologies, and on refining newer ones. Until commercially viable storage is a reality, wind energy will remain unreliable.
Wind energy also comes with legitimate environmental concerns. Sterling Burnett, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, writes, “Bringing a conventional power plant on line to supply power is not as simple as turning on a switch; thus most of the fossil fuel power stations required to supplement wind turbines are not ‘redundant,’ but must run continuously, even if at reduced levels. When combined with the CO2 emitted and pollutants released in the manufacture and maintenance of wind towers and their associated infrastructure, substituting wind power for fossil fuels does little to reduce air pollution.”
Wind farms also require vast tracts of land, disrupting farming acreage and animal habitats; and, as Sterling Burnett has pointed out, turbine blades kill thousands of birds each year, including protected species.
ERCOT estimates Texas’ electricity demand will rise 20 percent by 2015 and 43 percent by 2025. Wind alone cannot supply that. Rather, wind should be part of a diversified portfolio of energy resources, anchored by the traditional energy sources — like fossil fuels, which are burning cleaner than ever before — that have the best chance at meeting Texas’ burgeoning energy needs. Even in Texas, the nation’s leader in wind energy, wind tinkers at the edges of meeting our energy needs. Letting wind find and fulfill its reasonable supply potential — as opposed to subsidizing and overfilling the wind-energy egg basket — is the prudent strategy for finding the proper role for wind energy.
— Drew Thornley is a natural resources policy analyst at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and a Planet Gore contributor.
People need to stand up and do something about this cult. They seem harmless, but these people don’t just live up in a tree anymore. They are threatening are well being. If we don’t do something about it, we will end up living in the 19th century.
The road to hell is paved with green intentions.
Safe, reliable, clean, and politically incorrect.
Texas, say goodbye to your manufacturing base. These power costs will drive manufacturers from the state.
The author makes a good analysis of the total power costs although he did not fully analyze some costs. Beyond costs, windmills do not reduce CO2 levels. The backup power emits CO2. More importantly, the high fixed costs of large scale windmills implies that much CO2 is generated to bring the windmills online. The greens are just math challenged. The windmills are only trading some reduction in CO2 during the operating lifetime versus large additional CO2 emissions before operation.
Agree....albeit I repeat myself on this issue many times here at FR , Nixon established nine regions in the CONUS that should have 9 new nuclear power plants and 9 new refineries in each of those nine regions. A serious consideration for desalination facilities along coastal regions of this nation would as well be a possible solution too water shortages in large urban populations.
Cheap energy / utilities equals a strong economy.
Hey professor, I have about .05 kwh difference from wind and gas on my latest signup.
I went with wind. It’s probably not going to go up much, and perhaps will come down. Nuclear and gas and wind are all combined up, but why put down the wind part if it’s viable?
Just drove by three of these massive wind farms Sunday on my way up here to Colorado Springs for reserve duty. They’re pretty impressive, I gotta say - and if you ask the folks in West Texas, they’ll tell you the wind ALWAYS blows in the panhandle and coming up onto the caprock south of Lubbock!
(BTW, got 31 mpg in my ‘93 Honda!)
Colonel, USAFR
The article indicates that large cost increases will be coming for wind power users in Texas. Natural gas is a terrible way to generate electriciy. Comparing wind to natural gase is not a very favorable comparison.
Most alternative energy promoters do not include the full costs of alternatives when comparing alternative power to coal generated power. The enormous costs of the transmission lines and stations as well as the backup power costs are conveniently hidden. In Texas, it took several years before the transmission costs were disclosed.
I am not against any efficient power source. I try to look at the total costs and benefits. I see solar and wind as niche technologies that big losers is built on a large scale.
The only reason you can afford it, or they can sell it at that rate is because it is subsidized. Wind is an expensive energy source. Nuclear is the the easiest, cleanest and cheapest.
Stinkin worthless, brain-dead environazis.
Are you really claiming that the production process for a field of wind-turbines produces more CO_2 emissions than the production process for other types of power plants with comparable output?
(Not that I really care about CO_2 emissions, since CO_2 is a trailing indicator of global temperatures. It just seemed a very odd claim.)
Of course the other thing about wind power if one does believe in the AGW models, is that it removes energy from the atmosphere—wind is created by a temperature gradient. Removing energy from wind has a net (albeit small) cooling effect.
I have never seen any calculations about the CO2 emissions in the construction of wind plants including additional transmission and other power plants. There is no free lunch so it is a relevant concern if one is a CO2 ideologue.
Good point. I vaguely recall one interview, an admitted wind supporter, but he acknowledged it would never be more than a good niche provider. Went on to extrapolate enough turbines to provide say 50% of 2020 estimated needs, made the point that capture/kill of prevailing winds would measureably change the climate in unpredictable ways downwind of farms that large.
I’m with you on CO2. Who put this at head of the worry list? Assuming you buy that “climate change” is manmade, what we need to fret about is dihydrogen monoxide. This colorless, tasteless, lethal upon inhalation substance should by today’s standards, be banned outright. Perhaps one day purveyors of dihydrogen monoxide on the black market will be forced to inhale their product. It worked on the witches of Salem.
Well the wind don’t always blow in Texas no matter what they tell ya.
http://windfarms.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/texas-power-grid-narrowly-averted-rolling-blackouts/
A few months ago it was reported that they had to shut down for three days due to lack of wind in West Tex.
“The road to hell is paved with green intentions.”
So true!
From a thermodynamic perspective, with the Earth's biosphere as the control volume, there is no cooling effect. That energy is still present, it just gets converted to electricity and moved elsewhere on the transmission system. As it is used to run your computer, TV, etc, that electrical energy eventually degrades back into heat. While there may be some local weather/climate effects due to this, in the big picture, there is no overall cooling effect, as the same amount of energy is still in the biosphere.
As with many things, Homer Simpson has the last word on this.
Wow - and that was even around the time of the primaries in Texas, so you’d think there’d have been TOO MUCH wind...
Colonel, USAFR
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