the death of coal?

Quote: Pacomartin

I doubt if presidents Trump or Obama can really claim much leadership about coal fired plants closing. It is pretty much an economic reality... The future of coal-fired generation assets in the U.S. is limited, with no new plants being built and a majority of existing plants 40 years old or older

Yes, I was being facetious. Presidents get credit (and blame) for all sorts of things, fairly or not. (Richard Nixon's signature is on a plaque on the moon.)

And looking at the graph below, you'd never know that almost every environmentalist voter in America supported Obama.

Good article on wind energy; https://www.newsweek.com/whats-true-cost-wind-power-321480

"Many people may be familiar with Warren Buffet’s claim that federal policies are the only reason to build wind farms in the US, but few realize how many of the companies that benefit most are foreign. The Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University found that, as of 2010, 84% of total clean-energy grants awarded by the federal government went to foreign-owned wind companies."

Link to rebuttal at bottom.

Interesting take on wind power.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/wind-turbines-are-neither-clean-nor-green-and-they-provide-zero-global-energy/

This link is informative and easy. http://www.windustry.org/how_much_do_wind_turbines_cost

"Commercial Wind Turbines
The costs for a utility scale wind turbine range from about $1.3 million to $2.2 million per MW of nameplate capacity installed. Most of the commercial-scale turbines installed today are 2 MW in size and cost roughly $3-$4 million installed.

Total costs for installing a commercial-scale wind turbine will vary significantly depending on the number of turbines ordered, cost of financing, when the turbine purchase agreement was executed, construction contracts, the location of the project, and other factors. Cost components for wind projects include things other than the turbines, such as wind resource assessment and site analysis expenses; construction expenses; permitting and interconnection studies; utility system upgrades, transformers, protection and metering equipment; insurance; operations, warranty, maintenance, and repair; legal and consultation fees. Other factors that will impact your project economics include taxes and incentives."

This is close to what the first 3 wind turbines that the power company I worked for stated they paid for the first 3 turbines. They claimed 15 million for the windmills, but no figure has been given for the constant maintenance, or the batteries that are continually needing to be replaced to make the wind energy usable. These batteries connected are the size of boxcars. Discarding them is an environmental project in itself. At 8 years, the cells had to be replaced on two of the units so they replaced all 3. The blades which have been resurfaced several times, needed large structural repair at the same time, due to high wind throwing gravel through the air. In cold country there is also ice build up on the blades like the wings on an aircraft. When that ice lets go it can land a hundred yards or more from the structure. I am told it is a site to see, chunks of ice the size of small motorcylces being hurled through the air.

Generally it is thought that generators produce about half of nameplate value, so these 2 meg gens produce on average when they are running about 1mw. And it is also generally considered they produce that 1mw about half the time. So roughly, they produce about 12 mw per day. The amount of downtime they have fluctuates obviously, while they are laying on the ground, they produce nothing but debt.

From the link, I will use their .05 per kwh value of the elec. produced, for a wag. One of these 2mw gens, [sans the batteries and maintenance, and the road] I'll throw out these things produce 12mw x .05 per kwh per day. If somebody wants to check my math that would be great, but I get around 600.00 per day. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say it produces that amount 200 days per year. So it makes around 120,000 per year of electricity? They lasted 8 years, I'll be generous and say ten years, so each created about 1.2 million dollars [sans the maintenance and battery's] until they needed replacement or major overhaul. YMMV

A huge benefit that I did not add in, is the amount of diesel that was not burned to create that energy, which was significant. So all in all, for remote stand alone systems, they may be a good idea. The same reasoning doesn't hold true when nuclear power and large hydro is available. imo

Moved from food thread per Aye's suggestion

Another excellent article on the efficacy of wind power. http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Giberson-study-Final.pdf

"The federal government devotes
substantially more financial resources to
subsidize the production of wind power than
it does to study wind power"

"Since 2008, average capacity factors
nationwide have ranged from 31.1 to 33.5
percent."

"The Wind
Tech Report stated that most wind power
operators consider operating and
maintenance cost data information to be
commercially sensitive and prefer not to
disclose it. "

" Significantly, the two wind power projects for
which Berkeley Lab has the most complete
information showed annual operation costs
averaging over $21 per MWh, about twice the
$11 average employed by NREL."


lots more educated info about the costs of wind power.

Why would a 2013 report be that relevant to today?

Quote: rxwine

Why would a 2013 report be that relevant to today?

Quote: rxwine

Why would a 2013 report be that relevant to today?

Because that is when they made up their minds?

It was probably before that, though.

You have a funny looking dog.

Quote: rxwine

You have a funny looking dog.

Yah he digs his bones too deep and doesn't know how to get out of it.