When Reality Catches Up With Fraudulent Windy Promises
Austin, Texas gets a lesson in the real economics of electricity generation (as opposed to the “then a miracle happens” projections of wind power advocates):
For the past decade, Austin’s ambition to become the world’s clean-energy capital has been best exemplified by one effort: GreenChoice, a program that sells electricity generated entirely from renewable sources such as wind.
Now the nationally renowned program is struggling to find buyers – the latest allotment is 99 percent unsold after seven months on the market – and Austin Energy is looking for ways to bring down the rising costs.
But those are short-term talks.
Austin Energy officials say that times have changed and that the nation’s most successful (by volume of sales) green-energy program, which offers the renewable energy only to those who select it, might no longer be the best way to carry out the city’s goals. It now costs almost three times more than the standard electricity rate.
“I think it’s time to sit back and look at the philosophy behind GreenChoice,” said Roger Duncan, the head of Austin Energy and the chief architect of GreenChoice.
“It was our intent to use it to stimulate the market for renewables, which it did, and then eventually phase it out,” Duncan said. “It was never intended to go on forever.”
Duncan said part of the solution might just be adding new wind, solar and other renewable-energy projects into the bills of all Austin Energy customers, which could increase rates for everyone. He said there are also numerous other policies being considered but declined to discuss them, saying only that they will be proposed publicly in the near future.
Please, please do go read the whole thing. I wrote about wind power not long after I started the Crabitat. I just corrected some odd characters that had crept into that old post (and fought with a system crash while doing so.) Hopefully, everything is readable on the fixed post at this point. The important thing here is that I pointed out the low availability factor of wind power – a maximum of 35% (in practice it is less than that) when I wrote that post. That would lead one to expect wind generated electricity to cost about 3 times conventional electricity.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Austin, Texas. Or rather Austin’s “green” power option.
(Wind-powered electricity in Austin) now costs almost three times more than the standard electricity rate.
Welcome to the “green” future. Paying three or more times (it will be a lot more) what you should for everything. Not just power, folks. But everything that requires power to produce. Which is everything.
Via Memeorandum
UPDATE: Ed Morrisey, Instapundit and Say Anything all have very valid points, but they are not power engineers, either. Any of us in this field could have told you exactly how this was going to play out. I tried to point this out years ago, in fact. So did others. You cannot legislate by “then a miracle happens”. The laws of physics are resistant to political forces. In fact, they are impervious. Ask Canute – or rather Canute’s advisers.
Appalling, Energy, Environment | Gaius July 13, 2009
By Hrothgar, July 13, 2009 @ 6:58 pm
You are missing the point. It is the principle of the thing, not the cost to consumers that is important. We will all have to sacrifice to achieve mandated greeness (unless, of course, we are Democrat elites).
By Gaius, July 13, 2009 @ 7:51 pm
Actually, I am not missing the point.
Sad, isn’t it?
By Anthony (Los Angeles), July 13, 2009 @ 8:45 pm
At least they’re not blocking Ted Kennedy’s view with those turbines. That would be unacceptable.
By crosspatch, July 13, 2009 @ 11:34 pm
Gaius,
It is your fault that Austin didn’t work out. See, it is all about Peter Pan economics. If everyone just believes really hard and sends positive vibes, the universe will manifest clean, green, affordable, renewable power. But you didn’t believe. That messed it up for everyone else.
It’s all your fault.
By Tom, July 14, 2009 @ 3:48 am
Hi Gaius. Read an article sometime back that the amount of space needed for a windfarm is absolutely huge compared to a conventional power plant. We could cover entire states with these things and only meet a fraction of what is demanded.
The practicality isn’t there any more than the cost to benefit ratio. And subsidies won’t help the finances – the money has to come from somewhere…
By Ropelight, July 14, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
Thank you. I recall the original post and have used the information repeatedly to explain why wind generation isn’t the answer to our need for electrical power. I mentioned it to a friend day before yesterday in fact. Reading it again just now was a treat. Thanks again.
By Gaius, July 14, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
Oh yeah, Tom. I did not mention that in the original post, but the space demands of low-density generation like wind or solar (or hydro – think about the size of the reservoirs needed) are extreme compared to the high-density output of a conventional power plant (nuclear, coal or gas). “Green” generation takes a huge amount of space, is hideously ugly and has an enormous hidden cost – that spinning reserve that has to be there when the sun goes behind a cloud or the wind just stops or there is a major drought.