Taken from the USDOE:
Federal subsidies and support for wind power in 2007 was $23.37 per megawatthour produced. The average subsidies and support for all electricity in the US that year was $1.65 per megawatthour produced. These figures don’t include associated transmission and distribution costs.
Projected U.S. Levelized Costs (expressed as 2008$ per megawatthour for Plants Entering Service in 2016), listed in order of most-expensive to least-expensive by type of plant.
Solar PV $396.1
Wind (offshore) $191.1
Wind $149.3
Advanced Coal w/ CCS $129.3
Hydro $119.9
Advanced Nuclear $119.0
Natural Gas-fired (Advanced Combined Cycle w/ CCS) $113.3
Biomass $111.0
Natural Gas-fired (Conventional Combined Cycle) $83.1
Natural Gas-fired (Advanced Combined Cycle) $79.3
Sources: US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration
Now, Massachusetts is debating spending >$2 billion on a massive windmill complex in Nantucket Sound (off Cape Cod). It looks (to me) like a bad investment…especially compared with a modern coal-fired plant (or even nuclear).
What is the situation in Europe-have these thnings paid off, or are they dependent upon big subsidies (to make them viable)?
I have heard (no cite), that Italy has had several scandals relating to the government subsidy of windfarms-the local Mafia makes money off the site and construction, then the ratepayers are stuck with massively overcharged electric rates.
What’s the Straight Dope on this?
Economic disaster? No. More expensive than some other types of energy sources? Yes. Although you may also argue that the price of energy through coal doesn’t include the hidden cost of ecological damage: co2 & direct pollutants as well as mining, transport etc. Also I should imagine that the windmills would help the USA develop the technology and knowledge to become internationally competitive on the windmill market. Incidentally:
And you have to ask yourself if it is not an extra bonus that you may less your dependence on foreign nations for your energy needs with regard to coal/gas/nuclear fuel, if those are not present in sufficient quantities in the USA. Oil from Saudi Arabia doesn’t seem to have done anyone any favours.
Italian mob problems are hardly related to windmills.
Even if one believed that subsidies for wind energy were a total waste of energy, they’d be pretty small relative to some of the government’s other wastes of energy.
I, personally, think that they’re not a waste of energy, but rather a good long-term investment. They don’t contribute to global warming, they don’t spill into the Gulf of Mexico, they don’t explode and kill dozens of miners, they aren’t dependent on coal prices that will rise as the most accessible coal deposits run out, and they are good for relations with a public and an international community that cares deeply about the environment.
Subsidies for windmill R+D (which is all they are at this point - nowhere near economically viable) are fine, as long as windmills are allowed to fail if it turns out they can’t cut it. Subsidies without end, based off wishful thinking and warm’n’fuzzy pictures, would make it a disaster.
The Coal quote in the OP appears to be factoring in the cost of sequestering the CO2 hence the CCS (carbon capture and sequestration).
Coal and gas are definitely in sufficient quantities in the United States. Nuclear is obviously just a matter of reducing the existing roadblocks. Reducing the foreign oil is a totally separate issue. Basically, that takes either increasing fuel efficiency or switching cars over to electric or CNG.
We’re not dependent on foreign interests for electrical energy. We have enough coal for the foreseeable future. On top of that, we can mine the burnt coal for co2 and use it to grow algae which would make us energy independent of foreign oil used for transportation.
As far as the 5,000 jobs are concerned, they could just as easily be added by coal or nuclear related jobs at much greater efficiency which greatly increases the ability of other businesses to produce.
Could be wrong here, but I THINK the US is actually the largest producer of wind power on the planet. Regardless, it’s not like the US is behind the curve or that we have to break into the windmill market to become international competitive. I don’t know where the impression comes from the that US doesn’t have wind turbines already in large deployments across the country, but, well, we do. Thousands of the things.
As to the OP, I’d say, no…it’s not an economic disaster. Wind power is always going to be a niche oriented technology. It’s never going to be a serious replacement technology for coal or even nuclear. It just won’t scale up to those levels. However, the fact that it requires subsidies doesn’t necessarily mean that much, since it’s a fairly new technology. If it still takes large subsidies to continue 20 years from now, then it still won’t be a disaster, but it will probably be apparent by then that it’s not economically feasible except in very niche oriented areas.
I have been to Denmark, and seent he windmills in the Baltic Sea (I took the ferry from Puttgarten).
Anyway:
-how much is electricity in Denmark?
-how much does wind power supply?
-what is the life span of an offshore windmill?
It was my impression that effective carbon capture and sequestration technologies for coal plants were still very much a thing of the future and in addition very expensive with regard to the extra coal that needs to be burned to generate the same amount of energy. And then you have the problem of where you want to store the end-product and it still doesn’t address the problems to do with mining and transportation.
Foreign coal and especially gas dependencies are definitively a concern for Western Europe.
I am not Rune, but I can help answer the first part of your question…
From my latest quarterly bill (6 person household)
1533 kWh cost 561,61 Kr
plus 30kr contract fee, plus moms (value added tax) at 25% gives 739,51kr for the electricity we used.
But - the total bill was 3067,59 kr (due to charges for: transport of electricity (443,32), public duties (?) (156,34), network contract (161,99), electricity surcharge/tax (940,83), distribution surcharge/tax (61,33), tax to encourage using less electricity (!) (98,65) and then moms again (!) giving 2328,08 in extra charges).
My conclusion, the electricity is not very expensive, but using it is.
For comparison purposes, 100 Danish Kr is approximately 17 USD.
If I may ask, what’s the size of your house? That’s a bill for three full months, right? Approx. US$521.
For comparison, we use a gas-fired plant here (IIRC), I have a 2200 sq ft house with four people (two adults, two toddlers) and I paid US$774 last quarter.
It is a terraced house (rækkehus) of about 170 sq m. But I suppose the real question is how many kWh did you get for your $774?
I have no idea exactly what the contribution of wind power was to my bill, it is not itemised by source. However, from the DONG* website:
83 percent of DONG Energy’s power production in 2009 was thermal power plants of which the majority are fossil fuelled. The remainder came from hydro power and on- and offshore wind in:
* Denmark
* Sweden
* Great Britain
* France
* Poland
* Norway
*DONG=dansk olie og naturgas/danish oil and natural gas (but remains mildly amusing to me)
I’ve heard that wind can be used for up to 30% of our electricity generation if we have a national grid. Even at half that, it’s significant but no where near suffcient. I’d like to see more emphasis on nuclear and research on whether there really could be a clean coal solution. I’m sure that would need subsidies at first as well.
I’ve long said that it’s a mistake to look for one big solution to many problems, but that instead sometimes the solution is a set of a whole bunch of small solutions. Obviously 30% isn’t a complete solution, but if you put it together with a few other ideas, it might be.