[Editor’s note: The feasibility and desirability of aggressively pursuing offshore wind turbines has entered the national discussion. This post by Lisa Linowes, executive director of Industrial Wind Action Group, contributes to this debate.]

We were treated this week to the Department of Energy’s latest advocacy on wind energy: a new report proclaiming the benefits and feasibility of developing wind power along the coastal waters of the United States. The report adds little to the claims touted in DOE’s “20% Wind Power by 2020” (2008), but this time the focus is on 54,000 megawatts of electrical wind capacity off our eastern seaboard, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes. Water depths on the Pacific Coast, according to the DOE, still pose a “technology challenge”. [1]

Offshore Wind in the U.S.…

Yesterday, an op-ed by the late Ken Lay urged for climate action as a easy winner in benefits versus costs–something that was hardly true when he said it and known to be untrue now. Drastic action barely registers on the temperature/sea level/precipitation scale.

Here is Ken Lay (with Roger Sant) a year later with more advice for California in its current debate over whether to pass California’s Prop. 23, a measure to suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32).

Enron had seven profit centers tied to regulating carbon dioxide (CO2). What ‘Enrons’ are involved in the climate scare today?

The op-ed from September 1998 follows:…

[Editor Note: This post by Robert Bradley Jr. from January 19th documents a fact that American Wind Energy Association might not want to know. If the American public understands why windpower is and must be government dependent to exist as an industry, and if the public knows about industrial wind’s Enron roots, then the same public might just say: ‘let’s take our energy back’.]

January 7, 1997, some 13 years ago, was one of the worst days in my 16-year career at Enron. Enron had already entered into the solar business (1994) in partnership with Amoco (Solarex), and the U.S. wind industry was on its back. Zond Corporation was struggling, and  rival Kenetech had recently suspended its dividend and was on the way to  bankruptcy. Enron bought Zond on this day and renamed it Enron Wind Company.…

Germany is a country that has been a leader in many aspects of “clean” energy development during the past decade.  They were among the leaders in establishing pricing mechanisms for wind and solar, phasing out nuclear power and granting incentives to biomass energy producers.  Germany has the highest proportion of wind in its generation mix, now around 20%, but is no longer the absolute installed capacity leader behind the U.S. and China.

With a vast investment in above-market generation resources some in Germany are channeling “Mad Man Muntz” of early US television history – “lose money on every sale but make it up with the volume.”  It did not work for Muntz TV and it will not work for Germany.

A New Fairy Tale, Starring Wind Energy Generators

Lately, a story has gone round with the following general points:

• Assume that the marginal cost of wind is the lowest of all existing generation plant types;
• Assume that power pools in NW Europe accept generator bids based strictly on the marginal energy cost (MEC)
• Assume that wind can be the marginal generation resource during some peak periods
• Assume further that this MEC sets the price on the pool for those time segments (30 minutes) where wind is the marginal producer, and therefore
• Wind, by setting the MEC during some peak demand periods, will reduce the price of energy during such periods and save consumers money.