From Slashdot:
In 2008, billionaire T. Boone Pickens unveiled his ‘Pickens Plan’ on national TV, which calls for America to end its dependence on foreign oil by increasing use of wind power and natural gas. Over the next two years, he spent $80 million on TV commercials and $2 billion on General Electric wind turbines.
Unfortunately market forces were not favorable to Mr. Pickens, and in December 2010 he announced that he is getting out of the wind power business. What does he plan to do with his $2 billion worth of idle wind turbines? He is trying to sell them to Canada, because of Canadian law that mandates consumers to buy more renewable electricity regardless of cost.
On his website he says this about 2011-
We’re not going away. If I’ve learned anything during the many years of my business career it is this: No one has ever accomplished his or her goal by quitting or failing to meet and overcome a challenge. You reach your goal by hitching up your pants and wading back into the fight.
That’s what I’m going to do in 2011. And I know you’ll be with me.
Likely the market forces will have a say.
Here’s a video of his plan in better days-
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Meanwhile in denmark:
They were only ever farming taxes, not the wind.
And if we relied on this unreliable power, it would bring every fascet of our society to its knees. During these cold snaps, the wind was never blowing, and we would be in the cold and darkness.
.
Mike says:
“I would think WUWT readers would be appalled and press the government to give Pickens the green light for his enterprise.”
T-Bone is a big boy. He may want people to assist him. But what would anyone else get out of it?
Now, if you had said, “Let’s get the government out of the way of oil and natural gas development,” I would be on board. But Pickens is just an opportunist who has stepped on the toes of lots of small ranchers. Sorry for you things aren’t going his way. Not sorry for T-Bone though.
Here in British Columbia Canada which is the California of Canada our power rates are increasing because of so called green power. The government has forced the main electrical utility, which is public, to buy very exensive power from Independent Power Producers. These IPP’s have run of the river plants and windfarms but I cannot find any information on on power produced campared to installed capacity. I could be mistaken but the information seems to be hidden and this is a public utility.
Another interesting fact are the number of ex government and ex utility managers that are in the IPP business. This is the biggest taxpayer scam going. I say taxpayer scam because of the jacked up utility bills paying for all of this.
In a nutshell, Ipp’s which are supposed to be private, are heavily taxpayer subsidized. Ex government and utility managers jump on board and make buckets of money. Taxpayers stiffed with higher utility costs. Taxpayer again stiffed with the building of site C public dam to cover the Ipp’s run of the river plants and windfarms when they are not generating.
Boone was never really interested in Wind. That’s was just to help sell his fracking B.S.
>There are numerous wind power projects in the State of Washington but I do not seem to find a report on the actual power produced.
Here is what BPA, in Oregon I believe, is outputting. NOTHING for just about the entire week.
http://transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
How about Ontario today. Oh the sustainable energy is contributing about 1% to the grid, while the poor saps are paying through the nose!
http://www.sygration.com/gendata/today.html
Here is UK. Look at the difference between initial forecast and the recent forecast.
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
Between McGuinty and the BC green nuts, Canada will find some politicians that will waste taxpayers money by helping a green friend billionaire south of the border… Look for a PR campaign in the Globe and Mail to seal the deal…
Consider this:
My last electricity bill was $0.096 per KWh, which seems to be a reasonable rate. If I used 2010 KWh of electricity in a month or 67 KWh per day on average for all 365 days, my bill would be about $193. Suppose a solar panel saved me just 5 KWh per day on average for all 365 days. Now I purchased just 1860 KWh. Now my bill is $179. I saved $14. According to the website below, a good rule of thumb in figuring out solar panel costs is about $7000 to $9000 per KWh. Lets assume $8000 per KWh. So, my 5 KWh system will cost me $40,000. If I save $14 per month, it will take me 2,858 months to pay off the solar panel, or 238 years and 2 months.
Lets assume I’m in a state where electricity is expensive. Lets say I’m charge $0.18 per KWh. Now my monthly bill is about $362. Saving 5 KWh would lower that bill to $335 per month. I’m saving $27 per month. It will now take me 1482 months to break even, or 123 years and 6 months.
Remind me again why going green is good for our wallets? Suppose the costs to install is cut in half. Instead of $40,000, it is now $20,000 per 5 KWh. Even then, it will take several decades to break even on the cost of the panel, even with inflation. Going “green” only makes sense if you have subsidies.
http://solarpowerauthority.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-install-solar-on-an-average-us-house/
Wade,
You’re also leaving out the lost opportunity cost of your $40K. Interest, etc.
Then there’s maintenance, which is normally covered by the utility. With solar panels, if/when something malfunctions, that’s another cost to you.
I had a house with solar heated water panels – a pump ran the water through the panels for heat. Simple. But to get good efficiency I had to get on the roof every month or two and wash down the panels. They get dirty just from the dust stirred up from cars going down the street. That chore gets old fast.
Eventually solar will be worth utilizing. But right now the technology is just getting up to speed. If you’re considering solar, at least wait until the costs come down about 75%, and the panel efficiency doubles from here. A good rule of thumb is that the system should pay for itself in 3 years.
I’m 57 years old.
I’ve been fighting this (alas losing) battle for 30+ years against the hippies and
people living in “fantasy land”.
Nuclear power is the ONLY way to go!
I grieve that I cannot readily learn Chinese and offer my services in the latter days of my life to help the Chinese build a “nuclear powered nation”.
For Mr. Pickens, I recommend the “third ghost” of Christmas future.
Weather HOT or COLD I hope that’s where the wind blows him.
“You reach your goal by hitching up your pants and wading back into the fight.”
= when you are in a hole you keep digging.
UK’s wind power is 1.0% of consumption at time of going to blog and with Huhne shutting down old nuclear (20%) and loading coal and gas (63%) with green taxes we can all look forward to freezing in our homes in a few years. The French currently send us a 5% nuclear input through the link but I fear we are going to be relying on them for survival in the coming years.
This is lunacy and its time Huhne and the government were decommissioned so this Climate Act can be overturned and the wind racket investigated.
It looks like T Boone was either not ready or able to sufficiently kiss Obama’s behind to get the billions in stolen taxpayer money he think he deserved.
Thank heaven for small favors.
And pity the poor Canadian ratepayers.
@Phillip Bratby says:
**************************
December 25, 2010 at 9:40 am
Meanwhile in denmark:
E.ON AG, Germany’s largest utility, said its 207-megawatt Roedsand-2 offshore wind park in Denmark was operating at 130 megawatts capacity today because of ice on the turbines.
“Stopped turbines must be restarted at site which cannot be done at present weather conditions,” the Dusseldorf-based company said in a market message via the Nord Pool Spot AS exchange in Oslo at 12:49 p.m. local time.
*****************************
There HAS to be something wrong with those numbers!
There is no way in this world that they would be getting 66% of plated capacity EVER, let alone if half the turbines were iced up.
Have the reporters missed out a decimal place?
And in the UK the total generated electricity over the last 24 hours was 990,653 megawatt hrs, of which windmills contributed 10,261 Mw hrs or about 1.0%, of total generated power by all means.
This is from a plated installed capacity of 5,194 MW. So the % efficiency over the last 24 hours wind alone was 8.23% (nowhere near 50% is it?)
(There is a potential production of 124,656 MW hrs over the same 24 hour period, at 100% efficiency, if you believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden)
May have got the numbers wrong, too much brandy on the Christmas pudding
all the best
P
Wade,
“So, my 5 KWh system will cost me $40,000. If I save $14 per month, it will take me 2,858 months to pay off the solar panel, or 238 years and 2 months.”
You need to multiply your KWh times your localities solar insolation factor(how many hours a day of full sun equivalent).
The best places have a factor of 6 so their payoff would be 40 years.
Of course solar panels don’t last 40 years.
The biggest problem with ‘intermittant’ energy is that the fixed costs of the facility providing backup generation don’t change. So if for example we install windmills that work 25% of the time.
The local coal plant still has to have staff on duty 24/7, they still need to make their mortgage payment etc so the price of electricity per KWh has to go up at the coal plant.
Gone with the wind?
“Wind speeds have slowed over three decades across the Northern Hemisphere.
Increasing amounts of vegetation could be causing up to 60% of a slowing in wind speed across the Northern Hemisphere, according to researchers analysing three decades of wind-speed data in Nature Geoscience1 today.
The decline is a potential concern for wind-turbine efficiency. But researchers cannot tell whether the effect, an average 10% slowdown, will make much difference to wind turbines — the slowing winds measured are at 10 metres above the ground, whereas turbines operate at 50–100 metres up, where there is little global data.”
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101017/full/news.2010.543.html
Here is what windmills do to Earth:
http://www.tripwolf.com/en/guide/show/296124/Chile/Copper-Mine-of-Chuquicamata
Chile is the worlds largest copper producer. It takes a lot of copper to make all those generators attached to those turbines.
I’ve been fortunate to live in the Northwest (Central WA) where there is arguably more majestic beauty than any place on Earth. Recently I’ve been commuting the gorge once a week. What was once a magnificent panorama of basalt cliffs, lava strewn hillsides and picturesque vineyards has become a gaudy industrialized eyesore. flashing red lights by the thousands mar the starlit evening skies and in daylight, the mostly motionless, stark, obscenities stand waiting for the updrafts on the hillside that also brings the raptors to soar, unaware of the hazard the turning clubs represent.
Am I a little hypocritical to favor the massive dams while condemning the wind farms. Perhaps, but no more than the environmentalist who sees no destruction in these wasteful, destructive, ugly monsters. While the dams are problematic, those problems pale in comparison to the benefits they provide. Flood and erosion control, creation of navigable waterways, and the cheapest source of sustainable energy. My electric bill will go up 30% next year because of the need to purchase back-up power that is not needed from time to time on the rare occasion that the windmills turn.
Knowing that decommissioning them will be as costly as their construction, we can be certain that they will remain an eyesore forever, regardless of their success.
I am currently working with the developers of a promising new modular nuclear power plant that has minimal visual impact (all but the control facility and turbine generator are underground), it’s passive safety systems will be more reliable than the currently operating nuclear facilities, it’s components will be largely available in the US (current designs will require as much as 70% of their components to be purchased overseas), and it can be built progressively 45MWe at a time as demand grows. It can be constructed on site at existing coal fired plants utilizing the existing distribution network when those facilities are no longer cost effective (or legal). Yes, federal assistance was involved in the development of this design, but the difference here is that this technology is being developed and promoted through private enterprise that promises to re-generate domestic industries lost for decades when the nation turned its back on nuclear power. I have been visiting these steel mills, fabrication facilities, engineering firms and see the investment and growth being generated by the new nuclear age. Here the website for the NuScale modular nuclear power plant. Take a look at the future. http://www.nuscalepower.com/
nc says:
December 25, 2010 at 9:50 am
Here in British Columbia Canada which is the California of Canada our power rates are increasing because of so called green power. The government has forced the main electrical utility, which is public, to buy very exensive power from Independent Power Producers. These IPP’s have run of the river plants and windfarms but I cannot find any information on on power produced campared to installed capacity. I could be mistaken but the information seems to be hidden and this is a public utility.
Another interesting fact are the number of ex government and ex utility managers that are in the IPP business. This is the biggest taxpayer scam going. I say taxpayer scam because of the jacked up utility bills paying for all of this.
In a nutshell, Ipp’s which are supposed to be private, are heavily taxpayer subsidized. Ex government and utility managers jump on board and make buckets of money. Taxpayers stiffed with higher utility costs. Taxpayer again stiffed with the building of site C public dam to cover the Ipp’s run of the river plants and windfarms when they are not generating.
==================
In fact, we’re not buying much power from wind-farms in British Columbia, since there is only one, Bear Mountain, and its output is 102 MW, unless you count the Eye of the Wind at 1.5 MW. They’re not so lefty in Alberta but they’re six times windier at 656 MW.
Residential rates in BC average around 8 cents. That’s more than we’d like but less than most others have to pay.
River-run makes sense to me, but I’m not fond of the subsidies.
@Phillip Bratby says:
December 25, 2010 at 9:40 am
Meanwhile in denmark:
—————————————
Realtime in denmark:
http://ny.energinet.dk/Flash/Forside/index.html
I think the German numbers are giving available capacity. If that’s the case, they’re saying that only 66% of the off-shore turbines can turn right now. Doesn’t indicate that they are, or at what percent of capacity.
Erik says:
“Realtime in denmark:
http://ny.energinet.dk/Flash/Forside/index.html
”
Beautiful, thanks! I find it interesting that while they pump 1GW of superfluous electricity from Northern Germany’s wind turbines through to Norway and Sweden, they also import net 6GW equivalent of gas. Kinda dwarfs all the wind power toys…
What will the people of Kansas do, since Seimens built an entire facility for windmills in Hutchinson ? Clemson has used $100 million in federal funding on a center to study wind energy in Charleston, SC. Wait until the first tornado or hurricane hits these areas and tears their equipment to pieces. I guess it is all about having the contract to replace all this equipment that GE and Seimens really wants, of course coming from federal monies.
DirkH says:
“they also import net 6GW equivalent of gas. ”
Oh, sorry, make that 9GW – i overlooked one “entry” pipeline, makes about 12 GW coming in and 3 GW leaving to Sweden ATM.
@Rhoda R
‘I read some speculation, several years ago, that the water rights were what he was really after althougth I didn’t understand why water rights were (as opposed to access rights) an issue with wind power.’
I’m sorry if you were being rhetorical, but the water, or the water rights if you will, are as financially lucrative, or more so in some places even apparently, than the actual gas. The gas being shale gas, and like shale oil, it pretty much need extra work to extract and with shale gas that extra is water, which happens to be scarce in the free in most of those places that houses the shale gas deposits.
Ironically this creates a dilemma for on the one hand you have better ‘an foreign oil energy (and to some better ‘an nuclear) and national coal, but you gain the fresh water problem, which might not be seen as a problem in currently remote parts, but those remote parts water deposits are usually depositing the water to other places down stream, so instead the urbanias will risk becoming even drier with even less ground water and less water in the rivers and lakes. The first that will notice a difference is of course all the farmer and other industry that’s become dependent on the water supply, then in quick succession comes inner city urbania before suburbia.
So essentially it’s a drainage problem. :p
Speaking of wind energy, Grouse Mtn. Resorts in Vancouver BC built a wind generator up on their ski hill. The project came with all the usual hoopula about how many houses it could power, being green and all that. I cannot find any information about its output compared to nameplate so being a private company I guess they do not have to divulge that information. Anyhow go to this site and you can see how they are paying for it, hint take the tour. Maybe Pickens should have had tours.
http://www.grousemountain.com/Winter/The-Eye-of-the-Wind/Tour-Information-Attraction.asp