Posted on 05/08/2010 4:20:54 AM PDT by MissyMack66
COLOSSAL WIND COST: Tom King, president of National Grid, and Jim Gordon, president of Cape Wind Associates, announce a deal in Waltham, MA yesterday to start charging Bay State customers 20.7 cents per kilowatt hour in 2013.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
If only it was just TWICE as much. Try 4 times as much, as the article states - but that is not really true, as electricity produced from coal or nukes costs much less the 9 cents per kwh they’re talking about and basing their numbers on - more like 3 to 5 cents.
Put it together - and the cost of this electricity from wind is on the order of 6 to 10 times as much as conventional power. So - for you people who might average $150/month for power - get ready to fork over $1000+ per month (average).
This is the future - especially if this climate bill passes.
Clean energy costs more because it has to support useless liberals.
The Energy Information Agency of the U.S. government’s Department of Energy reports that, for 2008, natural gas was subsidized 25 cents per megawatt hour of electricity produced, coal received 44 cents per megawatt hour, nuclear $1.59. Oil was not reported in these numbers since oil is hardly a factor in electricity production. However, oil benefits from a variety of tax subsidies for dry well expenses and royalty holidays dating from the $10-a-barrel oil days of the late 1990s, which the administration promises to rescind. At the same time in the same year, wind energy received public subsidy of $23.37 per megawatt hour; solar energy received $24.34. These numbers do not include the additional subsidies we taxpayers have been compelled to pay for wind, solar and biofuels through the stimulus plan, the 2010 budget and the 2011 framework budget. These subsidies help support 2 percent of today’s energy system. Their proponents promise to double and double again the amounts of subsidized supply from clean and green with no commitment to ending subsidies. That’s not a new energy system.
It is fine for the rich touchy-feely neo-Marxist of Cape Cod.
Who are all union no doubt. I am betting that part of the recent agreement to allow this is based on requiring the use of union labor to build this colossal waste of money.
As far as I know, my power company still plans to build a 70,000 acre wind farm in Michigan and rates have already doubled because of legislation requiring “greener” production. Meanwhile in Lansing they’re introducing numerous bills that force the energy producers to produce less.
What will happen is lower production and higher cost to the consumer. Meanwhile the producers will have lower overhead costs and they’ll be selling carbon credits at a profit.
If “green” were cheap we’d already be using it. Duh.
“Electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket”
This plan has a price target of 34.7 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity? In South Carolina, for example, the current price is only 4 cents/kwh.I was shocked when my uber-liberal co-worker told me that she regretted protesting Seabrook back in the seventies. Maybe there's hope for nukes yet.You don't have to be a economics major to figure out that Massachusetts's new feel-good "green" rates will be yet ANOTHER reason why job-creating businesses are being driven out of the state.
And if the number of jobs in Massachusetts continues to dwindle then EVERYONE loses.
If we must have Cape wind at these exorbitant prices then why don't we hear about also using new 21st century nuclear plants (the ultimate green energy, whose waste output efficiency has been improved over 90 percent compared with older plants)? At least then the rate increases of Cape Wind could be counter-balanced by the inherent savings of nuclear.
And with 21st century nuclear you would...
- have energy independence from foreign countries
- have 50-year proven, steady-stream energy that was not dependent on the weather
- have a technology that has had zero fatalities EVER in the U.S. (even with outdated existing plants)
- not cause oil spills
- not cause neighborhood homes to suddenly blow up (as with gas leaks)
- not cause deaths due to hideous mining conditions
- does not kill birds or wildlife.
Oh yeah, and thanks Harry Reid for killing Yucca Mountain. Voting for Democrats kills --literally.
If wind generation could exist without their Federal Tax Credits it would be there.
In Texas, due to congestion of the existing grid, Wind Generators are “Paying to generate.”
If, and I know this is a big if, the feds wanted to do something useful, they would use wind generated power to split water atoms in to Oxygen and hydrogen atoms.
The Greenies think we need more Oxygen and we could burn hydrogen in real generators.
Wind power can also be dangerous. Ice that forms on the blades are flung off in huge chunks, smashing anything below.
This is a miss use of the word “subsidies” driven from the belief that government has a God given right to tax everything under the Sun. Comparing coal, gas and nuclear generation that gets tax breaks for costs to “green energy” that exists only because tax payers are forced to underwrite the entire bill for construction and operation is not an unbiased evaluation.
The goal should be providing abundant cheap electricity while not destroying the environment. Instead, we are being sold a bill of goods that the “Greenness” of everything is more important than our ability to sustain our standard of living as an Industrialized Nation.
This is deceptive because on the Cape currently, electricity costs at least 20 cents per KWH. Here is an article from 2008:
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At nearly 20 cents, the average cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity on the Cape tops the averages in every state but Hawaii, according to the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy. West Virginia boasts the lowest average at under 7 cents per kilowatt hour. New England is the most expensive region in the continental United States for electricity, with an average of about 16 cents per kilowatt hour.
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080321/NEWS/803210308
Safe bet. This is the land of the "Big Dig". It's as if Obamalamadingdong said "Where is the most expensive place we can build a boondoggle?", then waved his magic wand of approval......
Beat me to it.
Put it together - and the cost of this electricity from wind is on the order of 6 to 10 times as much as conventional power.
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