Search Results for: "Enron, wind power"
Relevance | DateResponse to Media Matters on Wind Power Accidents (dilute or dense energy for health & safety?)
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- April 2, 2013 4 Comments“[Wind accident] data … is by no means fully comprehensive – CWIF believe that what is attached may only be the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in terms of numbers of accidents and their frequency…. Renewable UK confirmed that there had been 1,500 wind turbine accidents and incidents in the UK alone in the past 5 years. Data here … may only represent 9% of actual accidents. “
– Caithness Windfarm Information Forum (UK), Wind Turbine Accident Data to 31st December 2012.
My latest Forbes Political Energy post, Oil & Gas Isn’t Just One Of The Richest Industries, It’s Also One Of The Safest, examined the improving, impressive safety of the U.S. oil and gas industry compared to the much smaller (but accident prone) industrial wind power industry. The massive height of open-element wind turbines introduces hazards for high-up workers and from falling debris.…
Continue ReadingGermany’s Unaffordable Wind Power ($0.07/kWh surcharge for $0.20/kWh power, anyone?)
By Donald Hertzmark -- February 21, 2013 21 Comments[Update: Germany Stops Fighting Arithmetic and Ramps Up Construction of Economically Sensible Power Generation]
Two years ago we looked at the claim that wind generation can save money for power pool customers. We found that the supposed savings could be realized only if the elephant in the room – the above-market feed-in tariffs – were ignored.
In other words, the total amount spent on electricity purchases from a power pool was augmented by the additional amounts consumers pay to fund the feed-in-tariff (FIT). As long as wind generators can bid a low price but receive the higher FIT, then they have an incentive to underbid, thereby reducing pool prices, but not overall costs.
In addition, we looked at what an economically least cost system might look like in Germany over the next ten years. …
Continue Reading"THIS AGREEMENT WILL BE GOOD FOR ENRON STOCK!!" (Enron's Kyoto memo turns 15)
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 24, 2012 4 CommentsLast week, a Hall of Shame cronyism memo turned 15 years old. Dated December 12, 1997, it was written from Kyoto, Japan, in the afterglow of the Kyoto Protocol agreement by Enron lobbyist John Palmisano.
Global green planners such as Palmisano were euphoric that, somehow, someway, the world had embarked on an irreversible course of climate control (and thus industrial and land-use control). His memo reflects the train-just-left-the-station mentality, as well as the specific benefits for first-mover ‘green’ Enron. Enron, in fact, had no less than six profit centers tied to pricing carbon dioxide (CO2), and seven if CO2 were capped and traded.) The story of Enron as the darling company of Left environmentalists has been well told elsewhere.)
The Washington Post broke the memo soon after Enron’s demise, showing how Enron was hardly a free-market, capitalistic company. …
Continue ReadingPOWER's Peltier: Show Your CO2 Hand or Fold, Windpower
By Robert Bradley Jr. -- December 18, 2012 19 Comments“Forgotten by many proponents is the justification for the PTC in the first place: to reduce CO2 emissions…. [Yet] … many utilities with large amounts of wind generation steadfastly refuse to release operating data for analysis. I suspect to do so would mean the release of empirical data to build the opposition’s case for insignificant CO2 reduction and poor operating economics. I was unable to find one study of existing wind energy installations that found the CO2 reductions predicted by AWEA.”
Robert Peltier, editor-in-chief of POWER magazine, is an honest broker. He understands the technical side of electrical generation as a professional engineer. He knows power generation in practice from his years of industry experience on the regulated and the nonregulated sides. He has taught the subject as a tenured professor.…
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