While installed wind capacity has nearly tripled in the US over the last four years, there still remains zero installed capacity in Connecticut. For those who are interested, the 50GW of installed capacity represents approximately 12.5GW of actual capacity given generous assumptions about actual output. This is about the size of 10 large coal fired power plants. You should do some research to ask yourselves how many coal-fired power-plants have actually been taken offline as a direct result of wind substituting for it.
Fun Facts to Know and Tell: Wind Installation Edition
Oct 20th, 2012 by wintercow20
That’s a lot of power, WC, at how much per kilowatt hour?
Note that this reader is lazy, leaving all the sweat research to WC.
I am less concerned about coal than some, at least crediting them with keeping Adirondack lakes clear, or is it the peat?
But I thought that the EPA was about to impose new standards upon several (15?) coal-fired plants in Texas, and I think I read about that at the Sierra Club site. End coal and we had better put up a lot of more windmills. How much per kilowatt hour FOB the PJM Western Hub?
Wind costs about 30% to 50% more per kilowatt hour than the better coal and gas plants – somewhat less than this if the “externalities” are all priced. It typically has (in an NPV sense) about 9 cents per kilowatt hour cost. This is, notably, about HALF the cost of Solar PV and other fancy technologies and actually cheaper than nuclear too. Except, this says nothing about intermittency, maintenance in practice – these are estimates based on models. Also, they say nothing of land use – which would be considerable. But wind is at least on the playing field of competitive.
Of course, take that with a grain of salt – if the PTC expires at the end of this year, the industry itself claims it will lose over half its employment, and the industry also survives in large part due to power purchase agreements – I don’t know if it would survive without those mandates.
Had an interesting conversation this weekend with my buddy who works in energy. Fracking has brought the price of natural gas down from the $10+ range to under $3 per thou cubic feet. This is insane. And awesome.
Points he made:
1. Coal plants take 8+ hours to warm up, so they, along with nuclear, are almost exclusively baseline power providers. They’re cheap, but cannot be used to address spikes/peak demand.
2. Natural gas comes on by flipping a switch (it’s like a jet engine that has a generator attached), so it is ideal for filling in the gaps when demand spikes.
3. Wind and solar are only really useful when paired with natural gas, because a) they’re not baseline generators (too unreliable) and b) they’re not good spot generators to address peak demand (peak use is typically in the evening, when the sun is not shining and wind is inconsistent).
4. When solar/wind are paired with coal plants, they provide little or no net benefit, because you have to keep burning coal just in case of clouds, wind dying, etc. This (plus their flight from nuclear) is partly why European power prices are so high.
5. Subsidies on wind in West Texas were so large a couple of years ago, it was actually profitable for wind farms to PAY THE GRID to take their power up to $37 per megawatt hour. Seriously.
6. Wind and solar won’t be viable until we figure out how to store power more efficiently so we can use it when we need it.
Just thought this was interesting–natural gas and solar/wind are strange bedfellows…
400862 306392There is noticeably a lot of money to understand about this. I assume youve created certain good points in capabilities also. 366351
Muchas gracias. ?Como puedo iniciar sesion?
123213 620482I truly dont accept this particular article. Nonetheless, I had searched with Google and Ive found out that youre correct and I had been thinking inside the improper way. Keep on creating top quality material comparable to this. 11779
357411 541020Aw, it was an extremely good post. In thought I would like to set up writing similar to this in addition – taking time and actual effort to create a extremely very good article but exactly what do I say I procrastinate alot and also no means manage to go done. 794226
750877 333130What a lovely weblog. I will surely be back once again. Please maintain writing! 867575
409096 191779I view something genuinely special in this internet site . 721032
Hello colleagues, how is everything, and what you want to say about this paragraph, in my view its
in fact remarkable for me.
You can certainly see your expertise within the work you write.
The world hopes for more passionate writers like you who are not
afraid to say how they believe. All the time follow your heart.
hello there and thank you for your information –
I’ve definitely picked up anything new from right here.
I did however expertise a few technical points using this web site, since
I experienced to reload the web site many times previous to I could get
it to load properly. I had been wondering if your hosting is OK?
Not that I’m complaining, but slow loading instances times will often affect
your placement in google and can damage your high quality score if advertising and marketing with Adwords.
Anyway I’m adding this RSS to my email and can look out for much more of your respective exciting
content. Ensure that you update this again soon.
900817 157330dress shops that offer discounts are quite common in our place and i always shop at them,. 572897
750471 602519Xanax (Alprazolam) is used to treat anxiety disorders and panic attacks. Alprazolam is in a class of 162042
Hi there, yes this paragraph is genuinely fastidious and I
have learned lot of things from it on the topic of blogging.
thanks.
473778 746105I see something truly fascinating about your internet web site so I saved to bookmarks . 759960
469685 538385Safest messages, or a toasts. are typically launched at one point during the wedding but are likely to just be hilarious, humorous to unusual as effectively. finest man jokes 451036
189912 996636It is difficult to acquire knowledgeable individuals about this topic, and you sound like what happens youre speaking about! Thanks 442544
26887 854052Rattling clean web internet site , appreciate it for this post. 513129
Hello there I am so glad I found your site, I really found you by error,
while I was looking on Yahoo for something else, Anyhow I am here now and would just like
to say thanks for a remarkable post and a all round interesting blog (I also
love the theme/design), I don’t have time to go through it all
at the minute but I have bookmarked it and also added in your RSS feeds,
so when I have time I will be back to read more, Please do keep up the awesome job.
527623 462188This internet website is my aspiration, really excellent design and Perfect articles. 190008
Great post.
Профессиональный сервисный центр по ремонту бытовой техники с выездом на дом. Мы предлагаем:сервисные центры в москве Наши мастера оперативно устранят неисправности вашего устройства в сервисе или с выездом на дом
809039 376303Good day! This post could not be written any better! Reading this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this write-up to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing! 157216
If you are going for most excellent contents like myself,
only go to see this web page all the time as it gives
quality contents, thanks
271584 19869You produced some decent points there. I looked on-line for any difficulty and located most individuals will go in conjunction with with your internet site. 305298