“No-Brainer” Windpower Needs Support
I think that the windfarm off the coast is such a no-brainer that I have not given it much thought.
The fact is, clean wind power needs you support. Start here, and also check out Tommywonk who has some good posts on the topic.
The Danes are coming
Denmark has led the way in offshore wind energy, having built the first offshore wind parks over 15 years ago. Bluewater Wind has arranged for two Danes to visit Delaware to relate their experience to elected officials and local non-profit groups. Thomas Kjær Christensen (right) is a Senior Advisor and biologist with the National Environmental Research Institute,
What will the monthly wind power sur-charge be for the average residential customer?
An excellent analysis of why clean renewable energy has so many benefits, beyond sustainability and environmental quality. These technologies will emerge as high-quality, job-sustaining economic engines for any state with the vision to embrace them.
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48201
Choosing wind power is most certainly a ‘no-brainer’. How could anyone with a conscience, or the slightest concern for the future, honestly believe coal or any fossibl fuel is preferable? Especially when we are talking about building long-term infrastructure.
This is a decision we will live with for decades to come. If Delaware can’t get it right on this one, we really will have dropped the ball…on our own heads.
Steamboat – what’s cost per/kwh of energy going to be in 2035, if generated with fossil fuels? If you think you can tell us, you are lying.
Wind power’s costs will be fixed over this time, irrespective of your diversionary “surcharge” non-argument. An offshore wind farm could end up generating revenue for Delaware in the long-term. As more renewables are embraced over the next decades and conservation / load stabilization increase through better technological efficiencies in transmission and generation, wind generation could end up creating a utility-level generation surplus in the aggregate.
In other words, nuts to your surcharge. The future will never lie with fossil fuels. We may as well get ahead of the curve for a change.
you hippies keep giving me the warm fuzzy sales job for these windmills but get all nasty when I ask “how much?”.
The premium is billions over the 20 year life of this technology.
$4 billion / 20 years / 12 months/ number of customers = the wind surcharge.
“An offshore wind farm could end up generating revenue for Delaware in the long-term.”
who do you mean by “Delaware”?
The Bluewater proposal is to build privately owned windmills on public (undersea) land. The revenue from this venture will go to pay bond holders and stock holders.
it will not be owned by the state or subject to extrordinary taxes like the slots parlors.
That’s why you need negotiators from the public sector a little smarter than the ones ready to bend over for the coal people. Undoubtedly Bluewater really wants this project here.
Undoubtedly there can be concessions brokered from BlueWater towards a long-term benefit to Delaware for any sale of excess energy not sold within Delaware, i.e. if there is an excess generated in the long-term.
You have to think a little outside of the box, steamboat. Anything’s possible if you are not a slave to rigid thinking about how things have to be.
“keep giving me the warm fuzzy sales job for these windmills but get all nasty when I ask “how much?”.”
The moment you can answer “how much?” for the alternatives you seem to like (i.e. coal) you deserve an answer to your question, steamboat. And not a moment sooner.
Price is not the only factor and undoubtedly your reasoning about the cost of fossil fuel energy generation would conveniently exclude all of the externalized costs which have been foisted on the public, for decades, by the fossil fuel extractors, brokers, and burners.
This little oversight, along with their long-standing well-funded political resistance to any environmental controls, has allowed them to get away with the environment-degrading murder they have for so long.
People aren’t going to fall for the “green is too expensive” ploy any more, not the smart ones anyway.
there is no potential excess. The Bluewater project will only suply a fraction of the Delmarva’s electricity requirements.
if Bluewater gets built, it will be because Delmarva has signed a contract to purchase the total output (without a guarantee of minimum MW’s supplied) at a fixed price that is higher than the current market rate.
$2 Billion is the cost of the NRG coal plant (If memory serve me, I have’t googled it today)
$4 Billion for wind
and
1.somethig for Natural gas.
All three proposals are more expensive than buying the market.
Delmarva would reject all three, If not compelled to entertain these overpriced bids by medling state politicians who are trying to buy some good press to offset the spanking they took for the last electric bill increase.
oh yeah, but this is a “good” rate hike because it’s “green”
just to be clear
$2 Billion is the increased cost to the rate payers over the 25 year life of the purchase contract for NRG’s coal plant
$4Billion for Bluewater’s windmills
can someone tell me which one is easier to make? Wind or Coal?
Steamboat has me all confused on this one…apparently this rock like substance that takes millions of years to produce and has to be extracted by ripping the top of a mountain off is the better energy source
two words steam boat Strip Mining…way better than wind man, besides this country has way to many mountains
Viti and Tyler both mention one of the best arguments for wind. If you think the full downstream coast of coal is being charged now you are kidding yourself.
http://www.stopmountaintopremoval.org/
The crux of the matter is that the cost of coal power is gong to increase, and dramatically, over the next 25 years for two reasons:
First, as a finite resource, the price of coal is sure to increase.
Second, expected carbon controls will increase the cost of coal power by about 30 percent.
Keep in mind that we’re doing this to provide stability in the wake of last year’s price shock. We’ve seen what buying in the market means. A power source with true price stability (the cost of wind is not expected to increase) is in our long term economic interest.
I still like the idea of taking out a few mountains in an around West Virginia. We haven’t had enough deaths this year and as long as we keep digging we can kill a few coal miners.
Gosh to think of it, we should keep mining coal b/c all those guys wont have a chance to get black lung, poor fella’s who the hell are we to take away their way of life
I still like the idea of taking out a few mountains in an around West Virginia.
Maybe if we take down enough of those damn mountains we can clear the way for some more wind.
Does hot air = wind?
We could have the “Steamboat Willy Self-Sustaining Wind Turbine Complex” right outside his place.
Get him talking about how clean and safe and stable coal is for America’s future…those wind blades would be flying!
TommyWonk, you nailed it. This isn’t a matter of “save $2B” with wind over coal”, as some would like to laughably attempt to boil it all down…reductio ad absurdum economicum.
It is about BS’ing people into thinking that they are saving a few bucks with dirty, antiquated energy when it is really just hard-wiring a tighter and tighter squeeze on a finite natural resource. It is about not caring who pays for it down the line, when the bottom drops out.
Typical Bushie thinking. Why sacrifice now when you can the spend the money and natural birthright of yet-unborn generations? (Or, the flip side of this absurdity : oil and coal will last forever, pardner, you should know that!)
typical elitist Nixon says: “How dare you ask questions! You’ll pay what I tell you to pay because I say it’s good for you”
Wonk, I don’t think we will see CO2 controls or sequestering any time soon. Unfortunately a lot of effort will be wasted on calling CO2 a pollutant instead of focusing on the real problems with coal, the impacts of the mining operation and Mercury (a real pollutant with real health impacts).
donviti, you must have failed reading comprehension. I haven’t defended NRG’s proposed coal plant, I simply asked how much of a rate hike would I get if the State of Delaware forces Delmarva to buy Bluewater’s wind power. I know that all three proposals will result in a rate hike, I just want to know how much. Aparently asking questions makes me a heratic to the gorons.
Jason, you better not tell Lynn Bullock that! He is, afterall, supportive of NRG’s proposal!
That’s right, steamboat. You’ll do as you’re told. Even if it does mean saving commoners like you.
my apologies steamboat who am I to put words in your mouth. I must have misread you when you said this:
“The premium is billions over the 20 year life of this technology.
$4 billion / 20 years / 12 months/ number of customers = the wind surcharge.”
and Here:
“$2 Billion is the cost of the NRG coal plant (If memory serve me, I have’t googled it today)
$4 Billion for wind
and here:
“oh yeah, but this is a “good” rate hike because it’s “green”
but I did fail, so forgive me if I “read” into and “assumed” a bias on your part.
Don’t know if anyone is still watching this post, but here are some costs.
Right now, coal is at 3.4 cents per kw hour, gas is at 6.8 cents per hour, and in Denmark and Britain, the newest wind turbines have stabilized at 2.3 cents per hour.
Do not have a real implementation cost on Bluewater. Most of the cost will be through government studies, not the installation. Actual investment should be under 2 billion.
Coal, with NO sequestration of CO2, will cost 4 billion just to build the plant. With CO2 sequestration, if done right, could run costs up to 50 billion. Since the CO2 will have to be either trucked or piped to a mountainous region, and once there pumped over 2 miles down. Only a couple of experamental wells have EVER been drilled down to that depth
Pumping CO2 into Delaware’s porous coastal flats, as first mentioned, runs the risk of contaminating our current fresh water stocks by creating less pressure and sucking brine water in from the ocean to compensate.
No one yet knows what would happen to the gas at 175 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature found at a little over a mile down.
For more on deep wells:
http://books.google.com/books?id=uzUKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=world's+deepest+wells&source=web&ots=kIK5yRXlKW&sig=WMQNxVltnlGmay6csk6CeX6OFv8