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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (36473)	8/26/2009 2:28:31 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

You don't* put windmills where there is little wind... and you don't site coal burners where the cost of delivered coal is too high...* The former is a far more restrictive circumstance than the later, particularly since its not just "You don't put windmills where there is little wind", but rather "you only put windmills where there is a lot of wind". But that does not mean* that their lower cost-per-kilowatt is IMMATERIAL to the decision to build!* Its not totally immaterial, but its not very important, partially because its not always lower, but mostly because cost per kilowatt hour is the main concern. To give an extreme exaggerated hypothetical to illustrate the concept, if you could produce capacity for 1 cent per megawatt, but it was only available one second a decade, who would care to build it? Wind power isn't nearly that extreme (on either cheapness or unavailability) but the central point is still valid. Theoretical capacity doesn't mean so much, actually producing electricity does. Cost per kw/h is a lot more important than cost per kw. You wanna drop ALL SUBSIDIES for ALL ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES uniformly (nuclear, oil/gas, coal, solar, etc.) and you can count me up for that one. Well at least we agree on something.