Steel Winds project generates power, profit

Buffalo News ^

[NRPM]

Q: Is the project profitable?

A: It’s absolutely profitable. It’s been profitable from Day One.

[NRPM]

Article on the wind turbines built on the shore of Lake Erie just south of Buffalo. Reading the article, it's clear that it's "profitable" only because of federal grants, tax breaks, etc.

[NRPM]

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??

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Depends upon the meaning of the word "profit."

[MasterGunner01]

“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.”

[fella]

“Depends upon the meaning of the word “profit.””

And who’s profit.

[lowtaxsmallgov]

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!!

[A. Morgan]

However, without the tax credits the profits are GONE WITH THE WIND... so to speak!

[kidd]

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.

[raybbr]

Nothing is profitable “from day one” unless it fell from heaven.

[traditional1]

"It’s absolutely profitable. It’s been profitable from Day One"

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......

[ProtectOurFreedom]

How far back in the supply chain do you go? There are no direct subsidies to electric utilities. They have an "allowable" rate of return set by the various Public Utilities Commissions. You also have "merchant" power generators who make power in the open market and sell it to utilities for transmission and distribution. Are there subsidies to coal companies? Mining is one of the highest capital intensity industries. Mineral producers claim sizable federal income tax deductions not available to other industries called "depletion allowances" which significantly increase cash flows. This helps pay for the enormous capital equipment required. What about the producers of the equipment used by mining companies? Do Caterpillar, Bucyrus International, Joy, Denver, et al get special tax breaks? What about the transportation networks that deliver fuels? The nuclear power industry has enormous concerns about civil liabilities in the case of an accident. A good treatise is found at Liability for Nuclear Damage. Even though this is not a direct subsidy like paid to wind, the nuclear industry benefits enormously from the caps on their liabilities for accidents. Strictly speaking, Steel Winds is accurate. Every industry is snared in a tax labyrinth that grants special dispensations, favors, or gifts from government. Some industries (like nuclear) couldn't even operate without government protection. Would be better off with a level playing field? Probably, but huge dislocations would occur. One thing is certain, though. Over the past 30 years, the direct subsidies, government "investments," tax breaks, price rigging, and government volume purchase requirements for wind and solar absolutely dwarf any other energy producing industry.

[dila813]

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.

[impimp]

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.

[Recon Dad]

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.

[Stosh]

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.

[nuke rocketeer]

From Power Magazine in September 2011.

http://www.powermag.com/renewables/solar/Chart-a-New-Course_3955.html

[traditional1]

"Just think of those fossil-fueled generators as alternative alternative energy"

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.....

[BilLies]

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.

[Recon Dad]

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 isn’t 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. Wind’s 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]

[MtBaldy]

Even that's deceptive. You can see direct payment to nuclear is 0. They get the cost of nuclear by including research and reduced tax revenue. In other words they are including tax money that could have been collected from the nuclear industry but isn't. Far different from the over $3.5 BILLION dollars in direct subsidies that goes to wind power. The fact they are trying to obfuscate is nuclear power is the cleanest, safest, and potentially cheapest way we have currently to generate utility level amounts of electricity.