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-
Mike g
Transmission lines from such projects cost around $200,000/mile 6 or 7 years ago.
for the US:
Nuclear power-traditional or perhaps Thorium power- on a scale the French are looking to achieve, built on military airbases. A purely electrical infrastructure to run 100% of the cars, etc. Ethanol powered aircraft….
Solar powered dehumidifiers for water………..??
Wind turbines are hideous eye sores. They kill birds more birds every year. How long is it going to take to fight this hair brained idea.
Storage of energy in a cost effective way is what is required for any intermittent source. So unless your location has the ability for pumped hydro, compressed air or something else wind is a problem. Solar might be a bit better because it is more compatible with the end use (hot sunny days need more air conditioning and that is when solar cells work the best).
On the good news side even if we decommissioned all the present nuclear (83? plants) and converted all the coal to natural gas we still have 50 to 60 years of supply. So we have 5 to 6 decades to figure out what next.
mikeg-
On the cost of towers I used the figure I heard from the group that developed a wind farm in Lee County, IL; so I can’t redo that part of the calculation. I should have added maintenance and decommissioning to “insurance and transmission” costs. Your 10% number seems overly pessimistic, but I’d be happy to redo the calculations for you if you can substantiate your 10% number.
Even these exceedingly high “costs” by KWH are far too low. No maintenance costs are included in these costs, and no one knows either what future maintenance costs will be, or what the useful life of these facilities will be. Having had much experience in things mechanical, and knowing about natural corrosive and erosive factors in the environment, the maintenance costs will be exceedingly high, and the useful lifetime will be much shorter than . . . I have no figures to analyze or compare to, as I have seen no estimates as to what useful lifetimes are anticipated.
Moreover, all of these “renewable” sources have greatly varying output, on a minute to minute basis. There is no effective way to modify supply to meet demand with any of these completely unreliable sources of power. It is difficult to do with steam turbine facilities, such as coal, gas and nuclear power plants, which are very reliable sources of power.
And nothing can be deemed “sustainable” if the real costs can’t be met by all of the users. Plain and simple, we the American people can’t begin to afford the real costs of these fiasco schemes. What is being attempted is sheer folly.
T. Booned Pickens should be referred to as T. Boone “Pocket” Pickens.
I guess the taxpayer funded transmission lines to nowhere did not materialize. Try calling it windy ethanol and you might have more luck with the dollar/debt flow.
The California Energy Commission has reports called: “Comparative Cost of California Central Station Electricity Generation Technologies”. As the name suggests, it gives the relative costs of generation for various technologies–wind, combined cycle gas, etc. They have an empirical model for that takes into account capital costs, fuel costs, maintenance costs, taxes, etc. Tax credits are counted as negative taxes.
Here’s wind compared to advanced combined cycle generation for merchant plants:
2007 (page 17 in the report):
Wind: 99.03 $/MWh (including 12.57 $/MWh tax credit)
Advanced combined cycle: 99.59 $/MWh (including $7.53 $/MWh tax)
Remove the tax credit and you have: 111.53 $/MWh vs. 99.59 $MWh
2009 (page 46 in the report):
Wind: 65.47 $/MWh (31.88 $/MWh tax credit)
Advanced combined cycle: 114.36 $/MWh (8.52 $/MWh taxes)
Without tax credit: 97.35 vs 114.36
The big difference between 2007 and 2009 is the assumed capacity factor for wind. In 2007 it is 34% vs. 42% in 2009. Both seem optimistic and costs are very sensitive to this number. I’ve been looking for some real data on capacity factors for wind turbines. Funny, in the reports they have capacity factor data for conventional generation but none for wind. There’s a lot of fine print in these reports. They will take a very careful read to fully understand. But, some interesting comparisons to the whole range of generation technology.
Here are the 2007 and 2009 reports:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-200-2007-011/CEC-200-2007-011-SD.PDF
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-200-2009-017/CEC-200-2009-017-SF.PDF
Well folks, there are boondoogles and there are T Boone Doogles.
I’d like to pick up on Wade, Smokey, and Harrywr2’s exchange from yesterday morning, dealing with the economics of residential solar.
I think that such installations are more promising than Wade’s initial calculation, but only for the individual owner, not for the society. As it happens I am in the middle of installing on my own home. Here are my condiderations.
The house is in a favorable area in Azusa CA. American Vision Solar has given a bid of something over $18000 for an installation rated somewhere around 2000 peak watts. They estimate the cost after federal & local incentives at something between 8 and 9 thousand dollars.
My own rough estimate is that the installation will produce as much as 10KWh per day for 300 days a year. Currently, Azusa has a two tiered rate system; the top rate kicks in around 250KWhr per month, and is close to 15c a kilowatt hour. So my rough guesstimate is a savings of 15c x 3000, or $450 a year. Payback in this case would be about 20 years. Smokey will say this is 17 years too long, but I’m not sure I agree. I look at it as a long term investment that pays back 5% a year, tax free.
And that’s at current prices. But there is every reason to believe that prices will rise significantly:
1. Present federal policies practically guarantee significant inflation; the price of everything goes up.
2. Upcoming changes in the auto industry are likely to greatly increase demand for electrical energy.
3. Significant sectors of the environmental movement seek to raise the price of fossil energy to make it competitive with other sources. It appears they may well succeed.
Take these things together, and I expect the price of electricity to double in the next 20 years. Which means that the payback time drops to maybe 10-15 years.
So what’s not to like? Well, the taxpayer gets stuck with 2/3 of the cost, for one thing. And like many other government programs, money is being taken from people of limited means to give to others who can afford to take advantage of the offer.
So, since I disapprove of the whole approach, why am I grabbing it? Simple: My taxes are helping to pay for this. Taking the moral high road just makes me one of the victims.
Pickens has always been more of a scumbag who got lucky with Mesa than a business genius as he likes to call himself. It was obvious from the beginning that this was a scam. Even more so than most alternative energy projects that have no hopes of ever breaking even and couldn’t exist in the first place without government subsidies. My guess is Pickens has some other scheme in mind, but was hoping to scam the taxpayers along the way. Can’t think of anyone I’d rather see broke and living in a cardboard box.
Tboone saw the tide shifting in 2007/08 he bet on wind , He had a nice pair to draw to a windmill and obama ,he asked for three cards and got cold winters, climategate, and the 2010 elections . Now he is folding because he has nothing and the truth is he does not care about climate and never did. It has always been about money and always will till this myth finally dies and is covered with snow.
Called it. I hate to admit it, but I called it. I knew about his plan to buy up the rights to the Ogallala Aquifer rights, figured this had to be part of the scheme, and so it was.
Wish I’d been wrong, but there it is.
Re: Jon says:
December 26, 2010 at 3:49 pm
“The California Energy Commission has reports called: “Comparative Cost of California Central Station Electricity Generation Technologies”. As the name suggests, it gives the relative costs of generation for various technologies–wind, combined cycle gas, etc. They have an empirical model for that takes into account capital costs, fuel costs, maintenance costs, taxes, etc. Tax credits are counted as negative taxes.
Here’s wind compared to advanced combined cycle generation for merchant plants:
2007 (page 17 in the report):
Wind: 99.03 $/MWh (including 12.57 $/MWh tax credit)
Advanced combined cycle: 99.59 $/MWh (including $7.53 $/MWh tax)
Remove the tax credit and you have: 111.53 $/MWh vs. 99.59 $MWh
2009 (page 46 in the report):
Wind: 65.47 $/MWh (31.88 $/MWh tax credit)
Advanced combined cycle: 114.36 $/MWh (8.52 $/MWh taxes)
Without tax credit: 97.35 vs 114.36”
There is something seriously wrong with the quoted numbers. Capital plus fuel costs alone is a relatively simple calculation for CCGT. At current plant and natural gas prices, fuel and capital costs come in just north of $30 per Mwh for the CCGT plant using a 90% capacity factor (existing plants regularly exceed 90%) and a 5% financing rate. Taxes, insurance and O&M expenses add nowhere near the $66 per Mwh needed to achieve the $99.59 figure quoted from the CEC report. In fact, the current generation of CCGT plants come in at under $40 per Mwh.
As to arguments over purported wind capacity factors and operating costs, the European experience is well documented because, unlike the U.S. where costs are obfuscated with “backdoor” subsidies and undocumented operating costs, European countries pay at the plant fence for all to see. The number for onshore wind is $120 (U.S.) per Mwh and for offshore wind is $200 per Mwh.
The grossest figure recently published by W.S.J. for Europe was what Spain and Germany had been paying for photovoltaic solar before they regained their senses; $583.00 per Mwh! When bankrupt Spain pulled back to $400.00 per Mwh, several big operating solar plants went belly-up and hoards more are on the way down. The commercial bankers who financed those plants are screaming bloody murder.
It looks to me as though the California Energy Commission is inventing numbers designed to take California into the same financial abyss where Spain and Portugal now reside.
@Charles Opalek and others commenting on his EROEI.
His numbers are true but his logic is way off. EROEI measures energy returned on energy invested at the moment of production; it does not factor in time. Therefore it is the wrong tool to measure energy investment of renewable sources. I believe global warming is a hoax most likely, but that doesn’t mean we should ridicule renewable enegry with false assumptions built on stats that don’t correctly measure what he’s attempting to say. Energy payback for wind turbines is 2-3 months in normal wind conditions. Therefore they are sustainable. Read a bit more.
I live next to one of the largest wind farms in the USA located in the Altamont Pass.
Windmills are beautiful and many people stop to take pictures of them. I’ve never seen a bird killed by one which is not to say it doesn’t happen on a rare occasion. But the fellow doing the research here “Dr. Smallwood” is very questionable in my opinion and I believe his data is seriously made up as a lot of his bird kills happen when the windmills are not spinning during the winter.
That said there are two huge problems with wind. One is total capacity as another poster mentioned. Wind here is very low for nearly 6 months of the year! So there is no battery back up system that is going to work. Wind is very high for 3 months of the year. Two, is short term capacity issues. In fact they do not capture all the available capacity from the wind even when it is available for a couple of reasons like energy surges and synchronization. I’d guess the capacity usage is less than 10 to 15% when averaged for the year.
The Altamont Wind Farms are slowly dying out as the turbines are not being replaced when they fail and a new natural gas generator is being installed near the wind farm.
Re: Claude Harvey says:
December 26, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Claude,
I hear you. Like I said, lots of fine print. Perhaps most telling of the report objective is the cost of advanced combined cycle went up from 2007 to 2009 despite the fact that fuel prices dropped considerably. That is hard to believe, but that is what the report says.
Capacity factors are part of the equation. In many areas it is mandated that the grid take wind power when it is there. This will force backing off or shutting down conventional generation, thus reducing its capacity factor and increasing cost.
Fortunately the report does seem to clearly document how they get to those numbers, so it is possible to challenge the results in a logical manner.
A field test of British windmills during the cold snap: F A I L E D
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1342032/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-You-dont-need-weatherman-know-way-wind-blows.html
But the price of Green…… it’s paid all right.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/12/price-of-green.html
Lets go with what works for a change!
32 of 50 are deemed poultry states. Utilizing poultry waste (which contains pathogens) and food waste (which rot in landfills), heat and electricity can be produced all year, rain or shine, wind blowing or not.
If the power companies do not wish to purchase the electricity just pipeline bio-gas straight to a manufacturer for on site generation of heat and electricity like the landfill gas capture. No fracking, water contamination, or emissions and a good ROI.
I’m ready are you?
http://www.moderntechnologymethods.com/
Anaerobic Digester
Pickens had no real interest in wind power. He’s all about pushing natural gas and fracking, always has been. The wind was simply a ploy to lure potential environmentalists and most were too smart to come on board with his plan. We have a home wind turbine, solar water heating and a home heat pump/geothermal heating system, in addition to our wood-burning Swedish stove. We pay little for power. Many months we receive credits for the winter months using our tiny wind generator.
Using alternative energy sources requires more than simple black-white thinking. You don’t expect an efficient gas-powered home furnace to pay for itself in savings over a year, why would you do the same for wind? Wind doesn’t work in all places. It’s not designed as a stand-alone power source, as prairie settlers in my area were well aware. Solar is excellent for water heating in most areas, and can be quite inexpensive. Solar, of course, can’t supply needs for an entire home.
Anyone attacking a power source for a lack of storage, misidentifies the problem. The concept of putting up wires everywhere to transfer electric power is absurd. The most efficient, and inexpensive, use of power is to make it where you use it. Hydrogen fuel cells at the site of municipal offices has done well in our area supplying everything necessary for a fairly large building. Hydrogen fuel cells also operate municipal buses in the Chicago area. It’s not about one-size fits all energy production. Let’s put some folks in charge with the ability to look at the big picture and handle the complex energy demands—as well as fight the monied interests intent on keeping their hands in our pocketbooks.