“The wind PTC is not a financial leg-up to an equivalent quality source to make it price competitive with conventional sources. The wind PTC rewards a misfit technology for its lack of control over its fuel source – a fuel that will continue to behave badly no matter how ‘price competitive’ our subsidies make it.”
This post reproduces my extemporaneous and prepared comments given at the Institute for Energy Research Panel on Wind Electricity, December 3, 2013.
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There are basic things about the electricity system that everyone needs to know as a starting point. For those who may not, let me retrace a simple concept: Electricity supply sources are of two basic types – those designed to be used nearly all the time and at a fairly steady and high percentage of their capabilities (base load sources), and those with greater flexibility, designed to be used less because at every instant year round there is a need for the sum of all electricity produced to precisely match demand fluctuations. …
Continue ReadingThe Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of over 10,000 individuals and organizations interested in improving government energy & environmental policies. Our basic position is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science. It’s all spelled out at WiseEnergy.org, which is an exceptional collection of helpful resources.
A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every 3 weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and environmental matters. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.
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Greed Energy Economics:
A More Realistic Cost of Wind Energy
Parasitic Wind Killing its Host
Battle brews over new energy mandates
Estimating the State-Level Impact of Federal Wind Energy Subsidies
Turbine Health Matters:
Good news for Falmouth: Judge orders limited use of wind turbines
ZBA Rules that Turbines are a Health Nuisance
Waubra Foundation – Explicit Warning Notice
IOA good practice guide, excess amplitude modulation and the failure of wind farm noise controls
Prairies, Wind Turbines, Solar Panels, and Fried Birds…
Continue ReadingAs noted in Part I, EPA’s 1971 sulfur dioxide standard was based on the application of wet scrubber technology. However, most utilities found it was cheaper to meet the standard by switching to low sulfur coal, rather than install expensive wet scrubbers.
Consequently, during the 1970s, demand for low sulfur coal skyrocketed. Western states, primarily Wyoming and Utah, benefitted; eastern coal producing States in Appalachia and the Ohio River valley suffered.
In Congress, lawmakers from eastern coal producing states sought to redress the economic harm resulting from fuel switching precipitated by EPA’s sulfur standards. Their solution was to require scrubbers at all new coal-fired power plants.
If utilities had to install sulfur controls, these lawmakers reasoned, there would be no incentive to switch to low-sulfur coal. (Of course, this is an absurd waste: From an environmental standpoint, there’s no benefit if a utility installs wet scrubbers and also switches to higher sulfur coal.…
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