In
a PDF document, George Taylor, PhD, a “senior
fellow” at the American Tradition Institute,
recently made these remarks after a study on wind energy costs was
completed:
There have been two big misunderstandings about wind
electricity. One, that it can operate by
itself, and two, that its cost is approaching the cost of conventional
sources such as coal,
natural gas or nuclear. Neither
of those assumptions is correct. The first because, in the absence of energy
storage or hydro generation, the only way wind can operate is as an appendage
to coal or natural gas generation; and the second, because wind imposes costs
on other parts of the system which no
previous technology has imposed and requires more new transmission
infrastructure than any previous technology has required.
These indirect and infrastructure costs are not difficult to
understand or difficult to measure. They have not been counted in most “cost of
electricity” comparisons because utility regulators have not required wind
operators to pay for them -- they’ve required consumers to pay for them.
But that should not be an excuse for policymakers to ignore
their impact on consumers, businesses and the economy. Our investigation shows that, in the absence
of subsidies, adding just the four largest missing costs would reveal that
wind’s full cost is about twice what the Energy Information Administration
reported in its most recent “levelized cost of electricity” comparison, three
times the current cost of gas-fired electricity, and 40-50% more than EIA’s
estimates for the cost of new nuclear or coal generation.
Point of post: an informed electorate is our only hedge against legislative idiocy.
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