NOTE- THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS SUBMITTED BY A GENTLEMAN WE WILL REFER TO AS ” MR SCIENCE” AND WE HOPE TO HAVE MORE IN THE FUTURE…….
First the facts, don’t believe the Texas oilman who claims we can free ourselves from foreign oil by generating 22% of our electrical energy needs from the wind. According to the World Energy Assessment Report the total energy consumed on the Earth right now is about 13 terawatts. The total kinetic energy available from wind, making use of even low wind speed areas is about 3 terawatts, making wind power a niche solution at best.
Now for the scam … wind energy is a boondoggle of colossal proportions!
The problem lies in the fact that the statement “the wind is free” shuts everyone’s brain off. Any reasonable consideration should consider all costs, including capital and interest, maintenance and feedstock.
By the way of comparison, current coal-fired plants deliver electricity to consumers for 10 cents per kilowatt hour. The coal cost is approximately 0.8 cents. So if the coal were absolutely free the cost to consumers would be 9.2 cents per kilowatt hour.
With wind mills, capital costs are more than four times that of coal plants per kilowatt-hour and the maintenance issues are dangerous and expensive. In Denmark, the king of wind energy they need to charge 36 cents per kilowatt hour in order to harvest this ”free” wind. Danes also had to foot the bill for new coal plants (so much for the green factor) to back up their windmills which are only available 30% to 40% of the time!
The first clue to any energy solution is the fact that there is some kind of taxpayer subsidy involved. Like ethanol and many solar plants, wind energy will not stand on its own, and has already drained billions of investment dollars that should have been used on more rational approaches. In the context of current financial conditions, chasing dead ends is not only ignorant, it’s dangerous.
If a country like the U.S. is going to seek alternative energy scenarios, the discussion must begin by establishing the lowest product price as the ultimate societal goal.
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