Wind Power Is Just a Lot of Hot Air

Right Side News ^ | August 8, 2008 | Vincent Gioia

[kellynla]

At first glance, the energy proposals of Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens for wind power and increased gas usage sound good. "We can't drill our way out of this crises"; I happen to disagree with this statement. We still need to drill to make ourselves "independent from foreign oil."

But the real issue is what is behind the clamor to expand wind power in lieu of increasing oil drilling. To understand this you have to read between the lines.

Not only does Pickens' firm, BP capital, have significant investments in natural gas, but last June he announced plans to build the world's largest wind farm in west Texas, capable of producing 4,000 megawatts of electricity.

The federal government subsidizes wind farm operators with a tax credit worth 1.9 cents per kilowatt hour - potentially making for a tidy annual taxpayer gift to Pickens based on his anticipated capacity. But Pickens and wind power investors have a problem: since congress didn't renew the wind subsidy as part of the 2007 energy bill, it will expire at the end of this year unless reauthorized. Government subsidies the most important aspect for wind power usage and expansion; without them, wind can't compete against fossil fuel-generated power.

As pointed out by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on July 9, "In 1999, 2001 and 2003, when Congress temporarily killed the credits, the number of new turbines dropped dramatically."

President Bush and Senator McCain have both called for renewed offshore oil and gas drilling. With gasoline prices around $4 per gallon, something needs to be done. However why is there opposition to offshore wind development? The Wall Street Journal notes that although there is no formal moratorium against offshore wind power, environmentalist and NIMBY opposition has stalled every sea-based wind project proposed in the U.S. thus far.

[BlazingArizona]

That number of windmills would obviously have an effect on the weather patterns and cause an drastic escalation of global warming.

You jest, but the flat-earth lobby is already worrying over whether the huge wind farms operated by Denmark and the Netherlands are affecting Europe's climate.

[driftdiver]

‘Apparently hurricanes are not an issue because the turbines are just below the surface. “

Hurricanes could definitely have an impact on these. 3-4 years ago one of the hurricanes moved a ship down in the keys. The ship is 510 feet long and was laying on its side. The hurricane moved it so it is now resting on its bottom. That ship ranged from about 70 at its highest point to about 130 feet on the sea floor.

[driftdiver]

yes I jest but my point is the wackos will not be happy with alternative energy. Their goal is to get us to stop using energy period.

In all seriousness wind is an important part of our weather. If you remove the energy from the system in significant (whats significant?) amounts it would probably have some impact. Not to mention all the dead birds.

[mouse1]

We need oil!!
Keep supporting our congress heros that are still in Washington!!

We need a vote
Nazi Pelosi AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov

We need emergency session
President Bush comments@whitehouse.gov
202-456-1111

John Boehner invited McCain to join them
McCain needs to get his a$$ to Washington where he belongs
It will bring the much needed media attention
http://www.johnmccain.com/Contact/

[kellynla]

“if there’s enough wind to get to capacity?”

and “if” is the biggest word in the dictionary...

With nuclear, you have electrical power generated 80-90% of the time. While at the best of circumstances, with wind, heck you don't even get any power generated HALF of the time...so you need a backup...

[Steely Tom]

Hey, I don’t need convincing. I’m with you.

I was just curious what the federal subsidy would be for 4000 MW running at full tilt.

I don’t trust Pickins. I want nuclear.

[Oldpuppymax]

So the government dollars go away and suddenly no one is interested in putting up windmills anymore. But I thought windpower was the wave of the future...would save the planet...would make its investors megabucks...couldn’t miss!! Interesting how tax dollars make everything more attractive...AIN’T IT!!

[kellynla]

okay...

[Citizen Tom Paine]

Many years ago when I was a young lad who thought he had a good technical background, I worked an a project which generated electricity from the difference in ocean temperatures at the surface and at some depth. The project was called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). As I recall the final costs were about $10,000/kilowatt. For reference, a gasoline powered generator was much less that $500/kilowatt. (This tended to be cheaper and simpler that any other means of power generation that I looked at, as I recall ,i.e., the technology was well know and reliable.) Consequently, OTEC installations were constructed only in a few locations where the expense or difficulty of delivering fuel were so high that an OTEC facility was feasible.
Now jump to wind power today. I suspect that if one prices wind turbines and their total life cycle costs, the cost per kilowatt of generated power isn't economically feasible. This is one reason for subsidies. This discussion is also valid for wave generated power. With wave generated power there is an additional problem of fouling by marine growth in most regions of the world. One suspects that the nation is once again being lead down a primrose path by the environmental anarchists. Does anyone out there have access to life cycle costs figures for wind turbines and for nuclear power? They should be made available to the public.

[Realism]

All types of energy enjoy Federal subsidies in one way or another that is the sole purpose of the Department of Energy. Wind gets a very small chunk of the DOE budget.

[cookcounty]

"1.9 cents per kWh is $19 per MWh, times 4000 MW capacity is $76,000 per hour if there’s enough wind to get to capacity.

WOW! $665 million a year in federal subsidies!! No wonder T. Boone PICKINS is spending all that advertising money, there's a big payoff in taxpayers' money.

Amazing how the lazy reporters of this nation are silent as sleeping sheep.

[kellynla]

“Wind gets a very small chunk of the DOE budget?”

as it should...I agree with the author, wind power is a lot of “hot air!”

[MinuteGal]

I'm not buying that T-Bone Pickings is trying to feather his own nest. He has more feathers than he can use, although with these guys, a few more feathers never hurt.

However, I think there's another reason...a more important reason. The timing of his ads running incessantly 24/7 is extremely revealing....i.e., right before election.

Folks listening to and being led by this clone of snake-oil salesman, Jimmuh Cahtah, just OUGHT to believe Obama's equally-incessant message of alternate energy replacing oil which is SO possible and SO imminent right?

Why, this famed billionaire isn't even talking about that evil product, oil, is he? So why should we little people even be talking about drilling NOW?

T-Bone is a stalking horse for Obama, no doubt about it. Why else these endless, red-herring spot ads on radio and TV about something that will never replace or even come close to replacing oil?

T-Bone is in the barrel for anti-drilling Barak despite his down-homey, twangy lingo pitching a magic elixir which will certainly cure all that ails ya.

Leni

[Thermalseeker]

Now he’s trying to sell wind power.

Actually, if you dig a bit deeper you'll discover that T.Boone's wind plans are secondary. The real reason he's pushing these wind farms is water, as in the Ogallala Aquifer. Transmission line corridors also make great places to put water pipelines. T.Boone has been buying up water rights in Texas like they are going out of style and is planning to make his next billion being a water Barron......and he'll use the power of eminent domain, courtesy of the Texas State Legislature, to achieve his goals......

[kellynla]

well if Pickens is hitching his wagon to Obama;
he’s picking a loser...

Obama has two chances of winning on 11/4...”slim & none”
and “Slim” just left the building. LOL

[cookcounty]

Wow, PICKINS is also in the Natural Gas business. He's trying to scam us from both sides of the street. While the crack journalistic teams in our nation are silent.

He's putting up a ton of advertising $$$$, and gets fawning brain-dead interviews in primetime. ----Maybe the networks have been "bought."

[thinking]

I have to smile when I read how “wonderful”wind power is....but what happens when the wind fails, behind every wind generator, there is a fossil fuel electrical generator, ready to assume the power load the second the wind slows/stops...

The other issue is, how much fossil fuel is required to make a wind generator....and, how many years of wind generation is required to pay back the energy required to make the wind power generator...I suggest it would require 20 to 30 years to pay back the fuel consummed in the fabrication of one wind generator....

[sinanju]

The real story here is the water. Over the past decade T. Bone acquired a huge piece of the Oglalla Auquifer under his much-expanded Roberts County ranch. The windmills and their power line are basically P.R. cover for the water pipeline he wants to build to Dallas. Even though Dallas is, at present, uninterested in buying his water, he anticipates they will be in the near future.

Through legislative sleight-of-hand, he sneaked through a law that let him set up his own Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1 with several employees, having been given several of his acres to qualify as the necessary five landowners. In this extraordinary abuse of the law, he now has the power of eminent domain to steamroll his neighbors and the right to issue tax-free bonds for his water and power lines across the 250 miles from his hacienda to Dallas. The definitive story can be had here:

http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/rivers/documents/There%20Will%20be%20Water.pdf

From the articles on the Sierra Club website, Pickens did a great job of romancing Carl Pope—Sierra Club Director—who wrote a gushing blog entry about his weekend with T-Bone and his windmills, but the membership brought him up short. Others have crunched the numbers regarding just how much taxpayer subsidies he can potentially mine from our pockets. You may well ask what a bilionaire octogenarian would want with more billions, but, after seeing “Batman Returns” I adapt the quote “some men just want to watch the world burn” to “some men just want to make things happen”; a usually admirable trait that has everything to do with our national greatness but here involves a man wanting do do something big with other people’s money and other people’s land.

[cookcounty]

Talk about "windfall profits"!!!

Tie this man close to Obama, NOW! Then 527 the crap out of this idiotic monstrosity in October.

[xzins]

Wind power has been used for a long time. Nothing against using it again. The only issue is cost.