Posted on 03/16/2014 10:24:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
zer0’s job as a marxist and a disciple of Saul Alinsky and Vladimir Lenin is to destroy as much of the country’s wealth as possible. he is a very smart investor.
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”
Vladimir Lenin
Not to mention the allowance this industry gets for killing protected wildlife like eagles and condors. And not a peep from the Sierra Club and other “green” organizations.
It never was about investments, It was about American bankruptment and offshore bank accouts from kickbacks.
I was going to comment about how incredibly misleading the first graph is; because the scales used make it appear that production almost perfectly matches capacity — yet, production is only about 20% of capacity. However, the article covers that point quite thoroughly, so I won’t be making any comment.*
* Well, except for the comment I just made above.**
** And the comment I just made above about commenting.
Wind Lobby must have ran out of money.
It’s “The Grid”, stupid.
Energy sources can be basically split into two functions.
“Something” has to just sit there and reliably hum along
day in and day out to cover the base load.
“Something Else” has to be reliably available at a moment’s notice
to handle the any surges and variations in the power demand.
There is no place to fit either Solar power or Wind Power into the mix.
The graph and the first few words of the article tell the story best.
Even though the production tax credit began in 1992, windpower didn't take off until 2001. So something is in play besides the tax credit. What is it?
The price of natural gas. Look at the graph.
The first natural gas shortages in 2000-2001 and the spike in nat gas prices at that time set off the first segment rise of the graph. Until 2005.
In 2005 the graph line(capacity) gets steeper which reflects the shortages and price rise of gas caused by Katrina. Until 2007.
In 2007 the graph line increases gets steeper again to reflect that the price of natural gas had started following the price of oil(going up).
The author is not well informed when he speaks about nighttime wind power in Texas. Because Texas generates more power from nat gas than from coal, wind is substituted for nat gas at night.
But in places like TX and CA where substantial amounts of the base load is provided by nat gas, then wind can be substituted in for nat gas as either base load or peak load.
“President Obama is not a smart investor.”
If B0 Soebarkah were our money fund manager we would all be broke. Oh, wait...
I disagree. Obama is an artifact of the Chicago mob. The goal is to redirect the wealth to the elites, not destroy it. All this "green" stuff is just crony capitalism.
Neither wind nor solar can replace any of our traditional sources.
Neither one can be provide either a reliable/dependable base load or a reliable/dependable peak load.
Some other source must constantly sit on low idle (typically this is a NG turbine) so it can be available at a split-moments notice.
My point was that a glance at the graph makes it seem that there’s a close match between capacity and production of wind power. A more honest graph would have shown that, while there’s a very strong corelation between capacity and production, in fact actual production is only 1/5 th of the potential production implied in the capacity figures.
You make good points about there being other factors involved — there always are. Grid management measures, such as the substitution of wind for natural gas that you mention, would certainly make things less bad, in practice. However, the fact remains: production is only 1/5 of potential production. The graph does not show that discrepency graphically (you can figure it out, but the graphics do not reflect reality). It’s not an honest graph.
In Texas no power plants are on standby, not since 2001. But they are talking about it as of late.
Lenin really said that? It's sooooooo Obama...
There is a difference in capacity and production for coal and nat gas also. And sometimes the nat gas and coal plants go off line unexpectedly
By making the capacity scale match the production scale; the graph does show that capacity and production are rising at about the same rate. That would be important, if you were interested in changes in efficiency. However, it also masks the fact that production is only 1/5 of total capacity.
Do you have a graph comparing the utilization factor for wind power, relative to coal and natural gas plants?
Ideally, no energy source would be subsidized. Arguments could be made about subsidies for R&D -- but, not for full industrial-scale commercial implementation.
“... no power plants are on standby ...”
-
Have to be; there is no other way to provide instantaneous demand.
You and I might not be using the terms “stand by” and “idle” the same way.
Don’t know about Texas, but here in Georgia we have a good mix
of hydro, nuclear, coal fired boilers, petroleum fired boilers, and natural gas turbines.
Many of our coal-fired boilers have been taken off-line (idled).
One of the most interesting is a big hydro dam
that uses water to generate electricity during the day
and then consumes some of the excess electricity at night
to pump the river water back up stream to use again the next day.
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