Is DOE/Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s Windpower Impacts Study ‘Junk Science’? (Albert R. Wilson challenges the ‘experts’)

By Kent Hawkins -- February 20, 2010 4 Comments

[Editor’s note: With the author’s permission, MasterResource reprints a probing analysis of a recent study by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Impact of Wind Power Projects on Residential Property Values in the United States. Albert Wilson critically examines a genre of analysis used by wind proponents, including government bodies and environmentalists, that produces a desired result. Comments are invited on this paper as well as on other examples of where methodological tricks are used to justify wind power and other politically dependent energy technologies. (Mr. Wilson’s Bio is at the end of the article.)]

WIND FARMS, RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY VALUES, AND RUBBER RULERS©

by Albert R. Wilson

I recently examined a document published by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory titled “The Impact of Wind Power Projects on Residential Property Values in the United States: A Multi- Site Hedonic Analysis” (hereafter “Report”).…

Continue Reading

Will Cape Wind Save Billions? Challenging a Study by Charles River Associates

By Glenn Schleede -- February 13, 2010 4 Comments

[Editor note: Glenn Schleede wrote this letter-to-the-editor in response to  a news report published in the Cape Cod Times, Cape Wind Savings Pegged in Billions”.]

Dear Editor:

Thanks for the article in your February 11, 2010, edition, but electric customers in New England should not believe the claim that the Cape Wind project will save them “Billions” on their electric bills.

Frankly, the numbers in the slick 9-page “consultant” study released by the developer of the Cape Wind project of $4.6 billion in savings over 25 years just don’t add up for at least four major reasons:

1. Huge Cost of Cape Wind electricity. The true cost of electricity from wind – particularly offshore wind — is huge. No one who is paying attention expects the price that Cape Wind charges for its electricity to be cheap.…

Continue Reading

Wind Integration: Incremental Emissions from Back-Up Generation Cycling (Part V: Calculator Update)

By Kent Hawkins -- February 12, 2010 32 Comments

Why has California expressed concern over the EPA holding up approvals for natural gas-fired power plants?

Answer: because state regulators know that California’s gas plants are crucial for establishing new wind and solar projects. After all, firming intermittent power sources is essential short of employing cost-prohibitive battery packs to continuously match supply to consumption.

But the analysis can go a step further. What if the gas backup actually runs more poorly in its fill-in role than if it existed in place of the wind and/or solar capacity? It does run less efficiently, in fact, creating incremental fuel use and air emissions that cancel out the fuel/emissions “savings” from wind.

Thus California should go a step further than just allowing new natural gas capacity. Regulators should rethink the rational of wind per se and block its new capacity–if only by removing the government subsidies that enable industrial wind power in the first place.…

Continue Reading

‘Green’ Wind, ‘Smart’ Grid–A Thought Experiment and a Policy Proposal for the Environmental Left

By -- February 6, 2010 9 Comments

Suppose you began this morning by learning that some investors and developers had stepped forward with a reportedly new type of commercial grade electrical power called “Zephyr Integrated Power” (ZIP). Being clever, they are spending a LOT of time and money marketing ZIP, knowing that this is their chance to break into the grid in a BIG way.

Their message– ZIP is “FREE, CLEAN, AND GREEN”–sounds great! Oh yes, and for good measure, ZIP will create oodles of jobs.

So the basic question is this: exactly what do we do before we allow these people and their new product on the electric grid?

We wouldn’t be so gullible to just take their word for it, would we? Yet this is exactly what we are doing today!

And there is more: our politicians are so enamored with ZIP that they tell these promoters that we will not only allow them on the grid, we will FORCE utilities to use ZIP.…

Continue Reading

PR’ing Industrial Wind: Government and Media versus Common Sense

By Jon Boone -- January 30, 2010 9 Comments Continue Reading

Big Wind: How Many Households Served, What Emissions Reduction? (Part 2)

By Kent Hawkins and Donald Hertzmark -- January 28, 2010 5 Comments Continue Reading

Big Wind: How Many Households Served, What Emissions Reduction? (A Case Study, Part 1 of 2)

By Kent Hawkins and Donald Hertzmark -- January 27, 2010 15 Comments Continue Reading

Peter Lang on Australian Windpower: High Costs, Low Emission Reduction

By Kent Hawkins -- January 21, 2010 10 Comments Continue Reading

“Cap-and-Trade” Is Dead–Will the “Federal Renewables Mandate” Be Next? (An “environmental tea party” may be brewing against industrial windpower)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 20, 2010 9 Comments Continue Reading

Remembering When Enron Saved the U.S. Wind Industry (January 1997)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- January 19, 2010 9 Comments Continue Reading