24 comments on Environmentalists: Global Warming Trumps NIMBYism
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First, wind is undispatchable - the blows when it wants and if it blows too slow or too fast, no electricity is delivered. That means that the system has to maintain spinning reserve ready and able to pick up all the wind output - that costs money and wastes other generation assets' fixed costs.
Second, the costs of wind power are hidden from the price through extensive goverment incentives - production credits, accelerated depreciation, tax rebates, premimum price structures.
The refurbishment of windmills had to await the energy bill which restored some of the government subsidies to make the equipment worth maintaining.
Corporate America knows corporate welfare and windmills are just another version.
At best wind is worth the fuel NOT burned in fossil plants less the loss of efficiency from those plants from running at part-load.
Yes, low cost, reliable energy production has been encouraged by smart governments for many years. Why? That low cost power has a very high multiplier in the general economy so a wise government does what it can to keep the price down (but not subsidized). For nuclear power, the initiatl R&D investment has become a huge cash cow for governments at all levels.
I don't think windmills offer any advantages in our energy system, certainly not enough to justify their current popularity with politicians. There might be a place for 5 to 10% of system capacity for wind but that still might not make it worthwhile.
Indeed, which means everything you say about how an electricity system can run should be taken with a great deal of salt . Acutally wind is quite reliable, where ever you set up the turbines the wind blows during certain weather patterns, so you could actually depend on generation depending on whatever the weather pattern is. Just like solar, for example in California the differnce between off peak of 28 thousand mw and peak 45 thousand mw is the sun. No sun, no 45 thousand mw peak, so CA today could build 20 thousand mw of PV that would be completely dependable. Of course for an industy which has run the grid the exact same way for 70 years and all its great minds tell you there is no other way, wind and solar are "undispatchable."
But now that you revealed your in the electric business tell me which part of it your in that can speak so haughtily about subsidies, the whole damn industry from generation to wires has been subsidized for seventy years!
Boy, 5 to 10%, those are pretty good energy industry numbers only a wiggle room of 100%. What would the numbers be on an industy that could supply 10% of US generation? Say 30 - 40 billion a year. No one would to invest in that.
I've been around politics for many years and energy for a decade and I've never seen more bullshit anywhere than in the energy world.
You expect our neighbors to entrust their electricity supplies to anyone OTHER than experienced professionals?
Come on down and we'll let you do some 500,000 volt switchgear maintenance BARE HANDED. Or maybe move some spent nuclear fuel. How about lighting off a gas-fired boiler - know what you have to do to keep it from blowing up in your face? Fix a live 2,000 pounds per square inch superheated steam leak? Meter reading is something you might be able to pick up quickly - you can read an electric meter, can't you? From 20 feet? Afraid of dogs? Not afraid of heights? Want to you climb a power pole? In an ice storm?
Not the hands-on type? OK, let's see you raise $3 billion in bonds for new generation. How about applying for a California Air Resources Board pollution discharge permit? Buy all the rights-of-way for a new transmission line? Place some straddles for natural gas purchases next winter?
OK, maybe you're a people person. How about answering the phones next time we have an earthquake or a hurricane? Want to negotiate with the boilermakers
Yes, come on down, smartass. You'll either be dead or under criminal indictment before lunch.
Unfortunately, you'll probably cause a power outage and we'll get the blame for letting an unexperienced dilettante touch the equipment.
The engineers generally know more about what they are doing than the directors, but the directors hire the CEO. Now if the engineers hired the CEO...Or the linemen...but that's not going to happen, ever.
There is seldom a single investor with enough shares to influence the board or demand outside representation (in most cases and maybe its changing a bit). Look at the outside directors and they are usually elderly socialite do-gooders.
Organizationally, a traditional electric utility resembles the Communist Party of the USSR - they had their own internal leadership selection processes and a monopoly on power. They did have to have a foreign policy - ie lobbyists in the state capital.
The one I worked for started downhill when the engineer-CEO retired and they hired this slick San Francisco lawyer to be the new boss. What a diaster.