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Pastimes : The California Energy Crisis - Information & Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (502)	6/14/2001 7:39:37 AM
From: GVTucker	Respond to of 1715

But wind energy is certainly not cheap. The only reason that Denmark gets 10% of their energy needs from wind is because the government heavily subsidizes wind power. In the US, the governments, both state and federal, also subsidize wind power. Yet even with the competitive advantage of subsidy, no one can make any money selling wind power still. The only public company selling wind power went broke last year. Yes, there may be valid environmental reasons for the government to subsidize wind power at the expense of fossil fuels. But the marketplace has demonstrated that wind power is not cheap at all.

To: Zeuspaul who wrote (502)	6/14/2001 9:54:08 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 1715

Wind energy produces 10 percent of the electric power needs in Denmark Zeus.. that's fine for them because they are a small nation which is primarily coastline. Here's an example of one of Denmark's 40 MW power plants, consisting of 20 different wind mills: windpower.org I can only imagine how pssed off those Californians are going to be when you try and erect a wind mill farm on their coastal vistas. And then look at the cost of the wind power plant when you factor in the 120,000 hour expected life-span (that 13 years) after which they will either have to be rebuilt, replaced, or torn down (requiring massive deployment of resources), and creating a nifty re-occuring source of revenues for wind plant manufacturers. windpower.dk And revisting solar: The conversion efficiency makes little difference. I have enough space on my roof to power my own needs. What difference does it make if I use 75 percent of my roof or 20 percent of the roof? It is the cost per watt that is the primary controlling factor. That's great!!... if you live in a area where you don't have any snowfall that would occlude those solar cells. Listen Zeus.. I'm a big believer in PURPA, and if individuals want to erect solar cell arrays to offset or replace their own power usage, and sell the excess back to the grid, that's absolutely cool with me. But that's a costly affair. And then there's that little matter about having to constantly wash the bird dung and dust off of your roof so you have maximum generation. And one lightning strike and "Poof!", you are now the proud owner of several thousand dollars worth of high tech scrap metal. But mostly PV is just too dmn expensive. The last I heard it's cost of production is around .40-.50/kWh, compared to the average .08 to .09/kWh that customers pay currently for power from the grid. Now obviously this may make some short-term sense in California until prices stabilize, but it clearly is not the most productive, or efficient deployment of resouces for the nation over all. And that's what we're talking about, isn't it? Energy independence in the most cost-efficient manner? Just like the US is held hostage to OPEC, California is held hostage to "foreign" exporters of power. Now they have to find the most cost-efficient means to lessen or eliminate that dependence. Hawk