WINDMILLS In the 70s, during the “First” energy crisis,. Hundreds of companies went into the Renewable Energy business, developing and installing solar water heaters, wood stoves, and windmills. State and Federal tax credits helped sales of all three. By 1982, oil prices stabilized, tax credits were cancelled, and the solar collectors were removed from the White House roof. Although a few of the best wood-stove companies survived, all but a handful of solar companies folded. As for windmills, all but buyers far from electric power lines regretted their earlier purchase, and the poor results may affect the public attitude today. The installed windmills were often in low-wind areas, and always too close to the ground. “Too close to the ground” requires explanation: First, the output of a wind turbine varies as the square of the blade radius. It follows that blades 10 feet long will generate four times as much as 5-foot blades. Second, the output of the turbine increases as the cube of the wind-speed. Suppose that the wind is blowing at 8 knots, the cube of 8 is 512. Now, suppose the wind is blowing at 10 knots. The cube of 10 is 1,000. That little 2-knot increase almost doubles the output of the turbine. Finally, the techies know that a wind blowing 8 knots at tree height is probably blowing at 10 knots a hundred feet higher, above the friction of surface objects. So, from now on, we will see very big blades raised high in the air, looking as “Tomorrow” as the Zakim bridge or the Sidney waterfront. Now, also, we are talking big money, which means organizations with the credit to take out thirty-year loans, and the patience to locate and acquire good sites. The Economics of Wind Farms: In 1996, the California Energy Commission issued its Energy Technology Status Report {2}, an examination of the costs and market readiness of various energy options. It is reprinted below. Notice that this comparison was drawn up when fossil fuel was less than one-quarter of its 2006 price. Fuel Levelized costs (cent/kWh) (1996) Coal 4.8
- 5.5 Levelized cost includes amortized investment and fuel cost. PTC is the federal Production Tax Credit for producers of Alternate Energy. Fossil costs not in the table: If the PTC credit sounds like a giveaway, consider that, among the many subsidies granted to the fossil-fuel industry, taxpayers are paying 15-20 billion dollars a year to protect oil fields in supplier countries. We provided that protection even before there was a 9/11. It may surprise you to find, in the table above, that even coal, of which we have an abundance, costs more than wind as a source of electricity. As a partial answer, there is a recent article in New Yorker magazine about the railroad supply lines linking southern power plants with the huge coal deposits in Montana. One power plant in Georgia contracts for 36 trains, each over one mile long, that are dedicated to bringing them coal from that northern state in a steady stream. You have noticed, of course, that wind is delivered free to the point of use. The interests of environmentalists and the promoters of renewable energy meet at another table, the costs, in dollars, health, and natural beauty of pollution resulting from the transport and burning of fossil fuels. Finally, and tentatively, consider the following possibility. The President and the Vice-President of the United States have oil-industry backgrounds. The Vice-President was charged with developing a national energy policy, The resultant meetings were held about 35 years after the US became a net importer of petroleum products, and while many scientists were warning that alternative sources of energy were long overdue. Nonetheless, the Vice-President met almost exclusively with executives of the existing energy supply industry, and he hasn’t told us what was said in those meetings. How about our representatives in the US Congress? Twenty years ago, they passed laws requiring that the average gas mileage of all passenger vehicles produced by one company be at or above 27 mpg by the 90s. Since then, however, they have failed to adjust their wording to include upholstered trucks, partly because they are dependent on the largesse of the energy lobby to pay for their television advertising. Is it fair to say that a major cost of our fossil dependence is that the energy industry now controls the country’s response to the twin threats of fuel shortage and global warming? Summary: Today, right now, windmills are our best hope of controlling the coat of our electricity, and of relieving the pressures that go with burning fossil fuels. You can’t have a modern windmill in your backyard, but your town could put up several, as could your county or your state. The Federal Government is authorized to subsidize them, too. They aren’t going up, though, until we, the people, convince our representatives that we want them up, and that we count. |