“Wind, an expensive energy resource, becomes more expensive (uneconomical) when costs are added for an apples-to-apples comparison to conventional generation. With natural gas prices at $4.00/MMBtu, and long-term cheap gas contracts available to anchor new power generation, wind power projects are typically uneconomic on a variety of grounds.”
A study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the 2011 Cost of Wind Energy Review, estimated the cost of wind-generated electricity at $0.o72/kWh. This estimate is nearly 20 percent lower than the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimate of about $0.087 per kWh.
But as I argue in a new study for the Institute for Energy Research (IER), Assessing Wind Power Cost Estimates (October 2013), adding wind power to the power grid involves a number of other costs.…
Continue Reading“[Enron was] the company most responsible for sparking off the greenhouse civil war in the hydrocarbon business.”
– Jeremy Leggett, The Carbon War (London: Penguin Books, 1999), p. 204.
“The United States fully intends to be the world’s preeminent leader in protecting the global environment. [E]nvironmental protection makes growth sustainable…. [This] recognition … by leaders from around the world is the central accomplishment of this important [United Nations] Rio Conference.”
– George H. W. Bush, “News Conference in Rio de Janeiro, June 13, 1992.
The rise and fall of Enron Corp. is Exhibit A by government advocates for increasing regulation of what is seen as unbridled, market-failure-ridden capitalism. As one economics textbook states: “The story about Enron reminds us of a serious fact of economic life—that markets fail….”…
Continue Reading“I therefore suspect that the most likely reason for this missing information concerning eagle mortality at wind farm facilities was due to editing from the upper level positions within the ranks of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. These are same people responsible for the wind industry’s voluntary regulations.”
“So here is the rest of the story. Due to the lack of accountability and monitoring, a single permit could actually result in the death of a hundred of any species a permit is issued for. So much for ‘green’ energy and the public’s sacrifice for paying more for electricity.”
A few weeks ago, an article was published in The Journal of Raptor Research, “Bald Eagle and Golden Eagle Mortalities at Wind Energy Facilities in the Contiguous United States.”…
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