Here Comes The Green Police!
The post for today is causing me major frustration; so much so that I prefer you simply read the article for yourself and then answer me this one simple question: what the heck is going on here? Here is a telling quote within the article that is just stunning:
…wind energy costs about $23 megawatt hour when all of its subsidies are considered, and natural gas, which has been responsible for about 90 percent of the new electric generation plants since 1990, costs 25 cents per megawatt hour.
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2010/feb/13/obamas-plan-will-up-cost-of-power-gas-and-food/
And you were wondering where all of that stimulus money was going? Crank up the printing presses and hand it over to the greenies in the name of ‘creating or saving jobs’.
By the way, if you haven’t already seen this Super Bowl commercial from Audi, think 1984 when watching it. It is not funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58zS4_jvM
Pathetic!!
Related posts:
FYI…you may want to check the numbers in that article. They appear to be all sorts of wrong. Further, the author does not link to any sources. Also, I think he is confusing kWh and MWh. Everything I can find, including from the EIA website puts wind power prices on par or slightly higher than fossil fuel power prices.
Here are some sources:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=tl_wind
“The cost of electricity from wind generation was 3 to 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour.”
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-200-2009-017/CEC-200-2009-017-SD.PDF
Starting on page 19 there are many useful charts
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lfibbBnlKt8/SlDvz6DbO-I/AAAAAAAAAPw/hGT8_rouDGk/s1600-h/US_Electricity_Production_Costs_blk95-08.png
This chart gives prices for other common generation types.
As you can see, there is no need to be fearful. Does this mean that wind energy is the answer to all our problems? No. But it may be a good tool to reduce our dependence on heavily polluting coal and fossil fuels that are damaging to the environment and not renewable. Is it perfect? Of course not, but it will continually get better as we create more demand for it. Lets welcome new technology and the benefits it can bring. Otherwise, we bury our heads in the sand and refuse to advance and seek new and better technologies and ways of doing things in order to be better steward’s of our resources.
February 16th, 2010 at 12:09 pm