Posted on 02/26/2012 10:21:27 AM PST by NRPM
Q: Is the project profitable?
A: Its absolutely profitable. Its been profitable from Day One.
(Excerpt) Read more at buffalonews.com ...
The Steel Winds guys makes an interesting claim, that all energy projects receive subsidies, especially nuclear. He says that none of them would be profitable without the help, so that wind power is no worse.
I don’t know if that’s true or not - does anyone have expertise in the area who would know to answer that claim??
“Profit” when it comes to wind farms and windmills is like former DC Mayor Marion Barry describing crime in his city of Washington: “If it wasn’t for the murders [highest in the U.S. at the time], Washington would be a great place to live.”
“Depends upon the meaning of the word “profit.””
And who’s profit.
Well, that’s the whole point - get rid of ALL subsidies for ALL industries, and let free markets determine which is/are the best. Cut taxes, cut subsidies, let comsumers keep more of their own money and make their own choices, rather than have the government choose winners and losers.
Lower taxes, smaller government. Yah baby!!
However, without the tax credits the profits are GONE WITH THE WIND... so to speak!
Nuclear power doesn’t receive a dime from the government. The perception that nuclear is subsidized comes from two sources:
1. Loan guarantees to build new plants. Not loans. The government’s money has stayed with the government- none has gone to the nuclear industry . The government basically co-signs a loan so that utilities can borrow money to build a new plant. Without it, no new plants would be built because credit is very very tight right now.
2. Limits on liability. Again, no money is given to nuclear. In the event of an accident, there is a limit on the liability to the nuclear plant. It is a sizable limit. But it is a limit. This country’s worst accident - Three Mile Island - didn’t apply. No one was injured, no property outside of the plant was damaged, and the utility ate the cost of the clean-up inside the plant.
Now, nuclear research does get government money. Most of this is related to military activities or fusion power.
Nothing is profitable “from day one” unless it fell from heaven.
Yeah; it's "profitable" just like Obama Motors, period.
Without taxpayer funding/propping, wind farms are no more profitable than any other bailed-out/propped up industry.
In the end, wind power is barely 30% availability, for use, and is backed up by fossil-fueled, nuclear, and/or hydro power plants, because wind-power cannot be depended upon "on demand".
For the fools who drink the "alternative energy" kool-aid, it's the same reason that electric cars have gasoline motors.....you can't depend on them when you need them.
Power generation from traditional and nuclear sources are used to re-charge electric car batteries, or you walk......
In 1982 I saw a windmill installed by the museum in OH on the shore of Lake Erie, asking the person who was giving us the tour about how much power it generates for the city, he said none, the power is too expensive and is just intended as a demonstration.
I am an expert in this field. He is wrong. Wind gets subsidized at the rate of $30/MW (at a minimum). So when power prices are negative (yes they go negative), wind generators still make money.
This might help you on subsidies.....
According to the Dept of Energy
natural gas - 25 cents per megawatt hour of electricity produced
Coal - 44 cents per megawatt hour
Nuclear $1.59 per megawatt hour
Wind Energy $23.37 per megawatt hour
Solar Energy $24.34 per megawatt hour
Biofuels $1.78 per gal
These numbers do not include the additional subsidies we taxpayers have been compelled to pay for wind, solar and biofuels through the stimulus plan
Oil was not reported in these numbers since oil is hardly a factor in electricity production. However, oil benefits from a variety of tax subsidies for dry well expenses and royalty holidays dating from the $10-a-barrel oil days of the late 1990s, which the administration promises to rescind.
Elaborating on one of your points:
The dirty little secret about wind power is that if it’s going to feed into the grid (as opposed to intermittent stand-alone generation on a farm or such), it’s got to be backed up by conventional power units.
The grid can’t tolerate sudden drop-offs on the input side, and the wind has an annoying habit of picking up and dying down without a whole lot of warning. If wind is supplying any significant fraction of the load at any given time, and all of sudden the props stop spinning, somethings got to rev up to compensate, or the grid is going down. And that’s where the back-ups kick in. So with new wind farms, gas-fired generators (or the equivalent) are going up as well to keep things functioning.
Just think of those fossil-fueled generators as alternative alternative energy.
http://www.powermag.com/renewables/solar/Chart-a-New-Course_3955.html
Yeah; fossil-fueled backups! LOL
With the EPA FORCING fossil-fueled generation to be de-commissioned (un-economic retrofits to meet trumped-up emissions Regulations), the effort to FORCE taxpayer-funded "alternative energy" forms of generation (of course, OWNED by "enterpreneurs" who just happen to be HUGE DONORS to the Democrats) will further increase the PRICE of power, and customers will pay twice (once, in increased taxation for the subsidies, and once for their actual electric bills).
I once was told that we would have power from the sun itself, once BP came up with a way to meter it.....
Do those subsidies include the subsidies for:
Installing Solar Panels on a house, in NY State one financial model (by a Solar Power seller) indicates that there are $20,000 of various tax credits on a $25,000 installation;
How about the cost that utilities have to pay (and pass on to their customers) when they are forced to purchase excess generation from Solar, Wind and other Green power sources;
How about all those property tax breaks that large Corporations receive for installing green power and that is not available to regular power customers;
And let us not forget the government grants to Green Power parts manufacturers like Solyndra, etc;
Back in the fifties a number of General Electric administrators were sent to prison for trying to sell their products in foreign countries by bribing foreign politicians. Of course, a Republican ran the Justice Department then. Now GE just gives and gets favors directly from Obama.
I would say they do not include those other subsidies, below
Now it is true that other forms of energy receive federal tax preferences. However, when calculating the implicit subsidy in terms of dollars per unit of energy delivered, the relative advantage isnt even close. For example, total federal subsidies in fiscal year 2007 were $23.37 per megawatt hour for wind, compared with $0.44 for conventional coal and $0.25 for natural gas and petroleum liquids.
In fiscal year 2010, they were even higher. Winds subsidies amounted to $56.29 per megawatt hour,
while the figures for coal, and natural gas and petroleum liquids, were tied at a mere $0.64.[3]
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