It's not my intention to say that Europe and Japan didn't have early renewable energy programs but rather to counter the argument that americans are not capable of developing their own renewable industry (with our own money)and must import it from outside.

This is part and parcel of the 'comparative advantage'-globalistic-evilbastard-libertarian economists who justify the gutting of the US on economic principles, i.e. wind turbines can be built cheaper in China or India so it's foolish to build them in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

I don't have exact numbers but if you're in California drive thru San Gorgonio or Tehachapi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gorgonio_Pass_Wind_Farm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wind_power

Massagran

The US did start the wind industry in the 70s, but it dies down after the regulatory framework became erratic and then inexistent in the 80s. Quite a few engineers move on to Europe, where programems were started a bit later and sustained in Denmark and then Germany.

A regular on European Tribune is one of the US pioneers that moved to Europe to follow the industry. His comments are a gold mine of information on the technical side of the industry.

If we are post peak and production is declining we would expect to see high oil prices and massive overcapacity in the upstream oil industry from shipping to refining and pipelines.

Given this is exactly whats happening I don't see how this can be construed as weak demand for oil.

To many refineries and not enough oil does not equal weak demand.

The report calls for a warlike mentality to combat climate change, arguing that it needs much tougher tactics and a new enhanced government department to meet the challenge.

Probably worthwhile reading the news story first, let alone the paper.

The report says that the scale and speed are not possible with the current approach, or anything like, because the priority would not be there to deliver an almost total removal of all CO2 from electricity generation by 2050. The scale and speed are such that you need a strategic programme, rather than a piecemeal wishlist.

The main call however is for geoengineering to be researched, since CO2 mitigation approaches are unlikely to be sufficient to avoid the 2C temperature rise, because of the lack of directed political will.

In general I'd say they are correct if you take BAU growth as a baseline to keep too. Wartime type priorities are not BAU.

I do believe thier mechanical engineers are taking into account not only technical but also political reality-that the efforts being made are simply grossly inadequate and certain to remain so.

Nope, wind is actually cheaper, on a long term average, than other sources; it's just that it's not profitable under current deregulated power market frameworks - not quite the same thing.

This is the tragedy of capital-intensive infrastructure in a world where the dominant ideology of the day is short term profit.

I would note that the US needs to replace almost all of its decrepit grid as it is, so I don't see that cost being added to that associated with installing wind turbines in order to determine an overall wind price.

Jerome,

While I agree with Gail on many things , I am with you on the long term costs of wind.

As I see it the argument that the grid will fail catastrophically is invalid.First off when and if it does actually fail (and there may well be a few wakeup blackouts) no matter how bad things are,fixing it will move up the priorities list to nunber ono fast.The public is as dumb as a herd of cows in some respects but no politician can stand in the path of keeeping the lights on.

UNLESS-things are so far gone that our handbasket has already arrived in hell-by the time we can't keep the lights on we will be living in refugee camps in large numbers and relief aid will comsist of water purifying and truck loads of dried beans and cabbage.In this case any money mistakenly invested in wind won't matter-hundreds of times more, thousands of times more , will have been mistakenly invested in other schemes with even poorer prospects for public good ranging from bankers bonuses to Govt Motors.

There has always been an extremely financially conservative element in certain parts of our society-people who have been willing to give up a lot in the short term for long term security.Such people saved and bought houses when renting was cheaper-knowing that rent is forever but mortgages are for twenty or thirty years.

A wind farm once constructed will last essentially forever-I have no figures but my guess is that a worn out turbine can be remanufactured for much less than half the cost of a new one and the transmission system never really wears out-it just gets reconditioned on e stretch at a time.

But the purchase of coal and natural gas IS forever.Ordinary hillbilly common sense indicates that ff will become on the average more expensive in real terms every year.

I have looked far and wide for a good analysis of the effects of the use of wind power on the actuall selling prices on coal and natural gas w/o finding one and conclude that wind is not yet a large enough part of the mix to matter much.

But the example of nuclear power is relevant in this respect.As far as I can see , the fact that we have a substantial nuclear capacity reduces coal consumption in this country by roughly fifteen percent,assuming coal would be the replacement fuel if our nukes are shut down.

If we could build up our wind industry to twenty percent of actual consumption there would emerge a very powerful effect of depressing coal and natural gas prices.

This would have the effect of extending the country's ff reserves for decades at least and might also enable us to cut our oil imports substantially by making the recharging of electric vehicles a more tractable problem.

It would strengthen our trade balance and contribute to our security.

Cheap tools are a bargain only in a society based on finance and short term considerations.In the long haul my Snapon brand tools , which cost several times as much as lesser brands , are not expensive-they are priceless.I can take a Sears socket that breaks back to the store for a free replacement it is true-but the Snapon simply doesn't break.The lost time, skinned knuckles, and frustration avoided are worth more than the short term savings.

One major crisis partly avoided by having an extensive wind system in place would pay fit.

A wind industry is not subject to lack of fuel shutdowns.A railroad strike or a coal miners strike will have but little effect on it, at least for the first few months.Strikes are not a problem in our current political environment, but who knows who might control our govt in a decade?

Jerome,

I wish I had as much confidence as you in the US government. They haven't done much so far on the US grid--except push for deregulation, so it is in no one's financial interests to maintain the grid.

With problems on many fronts (oil, Detroit autos, airlines, electricity, home loans) simultaneously, I am not sure the government is going to be smart enough to figure that they absolutely have to do what it takes to keep electricity going. Meanwhile, they keep running up debt.

If we had our house in order for electricity, and could add wind on without too much problem, then it might be a reasonable solution. But we have a "third world" grid that no one is going to shoulder the responsibility for fixing. Adding another element of complexity, without fixing our current problems, seems like it is asking for troubles.

Why would windpower be the driving force behind so called massive costs in upgrading the grid? Wouldn't nuclear face the same problem? My bet is that the decentralized character of wind (or at least 'possbile decentralized character') could lower the demand for upgrading the grid in contrast to some hotspots in electricity consumption caused by fewer but much larger nuclear plants.

I wonder if there are any studies that could give some figures to this discussion, as the same arguments pro/con pop-up everytime.

Maybe that's the situation now in most places, but it's really not a big deal to remotely tell a modern windturbine (or park) to produce only a certain amount of power if network overloading is about to happen. Also every inverter has to live up to rigorous rules regarding its frequency, phase and voltage output. Controlling these parameters can also be used to help regulate the network. These requirements are already in place in Denmark, so it's no future hi-tech. Computers can model the state of the network and use a SCADA system to control numerous production sites remotely.

But unless it's absolutely necessary you always try to put as much renewable power in the grid as possible.

Question: Where is the US going?
Short Answer: The US is going down.

Long Answer: When the United States sooner or later defaults on its colossal debt to the world economy, mostly to China and Japan, the US government will slowly decay to an arrangement of two things. First, there will be cadre of government loyalists dependent on a federal paycheck for subsistence, funding and grants, and fealty to foreign concerns—scientists, agents, factory farm managers, approved entrepreneurs, public school teachers, prison wardens, media mouth pieces, conformist academics, administrators, persons with narrow-scope, somewhat short-sighted views. Second, there will be the national law enforcement agencies tasked with preventing open, violent rebellion and revolution. The white train cars, FEMA camps and plastic coffins are already in place, in case things get really ugly. The American Empire will collapse under its own weight. Suburbia is doomed. Reasoned debate among those in charge is limited to bedrock concerns about their next two-, four- or six-year term or retirement. A national energy policy is nice but it’s not going anywhere before the next generation of unmanned aerial bomber, spy satellite and Big Pharm vaccine gets off the ground.

Where is the US going?

to an irrelevant oblivion. And the world will be very fortunate if it doesn't take everything down with it.

Of course, the U.S. learned all this from Europe. The U.S. would be South Africa without the "opportunities" presented by WWI-WWII

“Where is the US going?"

I look at the big picture as a big game of last one standing.

All Countries are doing whatever possible to not be the first. This explains what is happening better than anything I can see.

At the same time the World is afraid that if the US falls first and fast it will get real messy and they are right.

The biggest wild card IMO is Israel. If they get a hint that their big brother might not be there on the playground to protect them, they will strike first. Go all Columbine.

It most likely is best for all if US is last one standing, so get comfortable with our lot in life and start act Imperial.

“Start wearing purple” LOL

Well, when life serves up lemons, maybe its best to just make lemonade.

The fact of the matter is that the era of large-scale, centralized, statist approaches has already peaked along with oil, and is fading into the past. The future is going to be small-scale and localized.

The US missed out to some extent on the centralized statism that was characteristic in most other large and developed countries. Trying to belatedly bring that in just when it has largely run its course elsewhere might not be the wisest approach. The fact that the US has been constitutionally designed to be federalist and decentralized might fortuitously serve to position the US well for a decentralized and localized future.

Thus, instead of thinking that what we need are large, centralized, national-scale solutions to all of our problems, fretting about the blockage that the national government represents, and thinking about how to change that, maybe what we really need to be thinking about is working with the system rather than against it, bypassing Washington entirely, and focusing on decentralized, small-scale solutions that can be implemented at the state and local level without depending upon Washington's help or approval.

Thus, getting back to the topic of this thread, with specific reference to wind power, what needs to happen is that wind generators need to be installed in the places that make the most sense. These are going to be places that: a) have good steady winds; b) need electricity nearby; and c) lack better options. The problem with schemes that envision large scale wind farms being set up in one part of the nation, and the electricity then being transported long distances to other parts of the nation, is that such a scheme inevitably cross several states and thus requires the involvement of the FedGov. Smaller scale installations close to the end consumers require less involvement with the Feds.

Where is the US going? Going, going gone...

Actually the country that I knew as the US when I was much younger seems to have been dismantled a long long time ago.

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

Steppenwolf Monster/Suicide/America

The Fascist father of the neo-conservatives, Leo Strauss, and his students seem to be holding our Congress and the administration enthralled. Is that the Chicago school you mean?

To my knowledge there is no factory, powered by wind or solar, that can bake silicon into chips or forge high grade metals for turbine blades. We need just one such factory, to allow us to demonstrate the doable.

That is just silly. Energy is fungible. It makes no difference if say a solar panel factory gets most of its energy from fossil fuels. So long as its energy consumption is much lower than what will be produced by its products. And since any modern industry is distributed all over the place: materials and parts coming from all over the world, global measures are the only ones that make sense. Now it could be that some material inputs depend upon chemicals from fossil fuels, that is a different problem from EROEI. And it will have to be worked out. Currently Iron and steel, depend upon metalurgic coal, for instance. I'd bet that we could find a way to smelt iron without coal inputs, but it would be more expensive, and not needed until we can no longer use coal for it.

"Zero cost marginal producer" just doesn't exist. As en electricity trader, i can assure you that 1 - there are still costs to maintaining those turbines 2- they do have a finite life so we will have to wait and see what the ultimate recovery of energy is 3 - there are enormous costs in regulating a system around wind and spinning reserves can actually INCREASE overall price . I am not sure which studies you are referring to, but almost all that i have seen show that wind is a bad investment when considering the total energy invested. Good idea, will work one day, but Spain/Germany did are doing the world a favor by spending a lot so we can gain from there mistakes. As for giving a "guaranteed" price, I am not sure what you mean, but I am pretty sure the only "guarantee" is that wasting a lot of money on unproven technology makes people feel good.

Whoops. A liar is one who purposefully mistates the truth, like politicians do. "Ignorant liar" is almost an oxymoron.

I agree that Germany makes a lot of money selling turbines to the world. Ferrari makes money selling cars too, but it doesn't mean it good for the planet.

As for prices, yes, marginal prices might drop at some times, but the subsidies, spin/reg requirements, AND economic impact on other facilities (not building more efficient new gas turbines/ultra-super crits), really make it a silly argument. Try finding evidence that is from an independent source.

Again, "financially competitive" and "economic" or "societally smart" are rather different concepts...

Dear Gail,

Do you know of studies about other energies being "financially competitive"?

Say, if oil refiners/producers had to build their own harbours (instead of using the subsidised ones), if they had to pay to use the public roads, etc.

Or would the North Sea enterprise have been "financially competitive" if the oil companies had to pay taxes (like everybody else) during the initial years of exploration and production (they were exempt of the PRT (Petroleum Revenue Tax) for many many years).

Would offshore oil be competitive without the subsidies (or tax exemptions, for ex ref)

Are there any studies about the cost of Nuclear? (if they had to get private insurance without Gov. back up and take care of all the decommission and long term waste)

I am very curious about the hidden subsidies (not as apparent as feed in tarif) from the other energies. These are also subsidies with our taxes, no questions asked.

It's hard to find an ideal project for really big wind.

You may remember my suggestion to you(Gail) from many months ago that a giant wind farm could supply electricity for cooking oil out of shale in Wyoming/Colorado by Shell's Mahogany method which has an EROI of +3.
As far as water goes you can either pull the plug on Lake Powell or divert Snake River water from Jackson Lake.

A billion barrels of oil per year, 3 million barrels per day would require 1.6 TWh per day or 300 GW of wind. 300 GW would be supplied by
200,000 1.5 MW wind turbines covering perhaps 20000 square miles of flat scrub plateau all in the immediate vicinity of the Colorado/Green river oil shales.

Oil shale is a good insulator so intermittent electricity could be stored as heat. The Colorado/Green River oil shale resource is about 600 Gb.
Southern Wyoming has excellent wind resources blowing steadily thru its historic South Pass.

300 GW of wind at $1 per W = $300 billion dollars for 3 million barrels of oil per day. Petrobras is interested in investing $200 billion dollars in the Tupi field for a 700,000 bpd return for 4 years.

http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/brazil-tupi-oil+field/868

Greenpeace and the Sierra club have been picking on the wrong targets.

Now Theskepticaltrader, what is that supposed to mean ? Do I smell a "Plank in Your Own Eye"-issue here ?

So China is a fast growing economy coming from way down with the 3rd world while the USA is (or used to be) a fully developed country. Your growth numbers just can't be compared.

Also, the US has 250 million inhabitants and china has 1 billion, so comparing 940 with 2500 without those numbers is comparing apples with oranges. And another issue: the US offloads it's mass production to China, so part of the energy consumption there should be written on the balance of the US.

Last, just saying "well let the others sort their business first before I have to" is just a way of justifying your lack of responsibility.

And yet even though China produces consumer goods for practically the entire Western world, it still emits almost 5 times less CO2 per capita than the US does.

Note that emissions as a result of manufacturing exports and emissions avoided by importing products are not considered in the graph above. For instance, around 33% of China's emissions in 2005 were due to the production of exports rather than consumption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissio...

And even though China has a much lower GDP than the US it invests far more in renewable energy and efficiency than the US does:
http://www.ren21.net/pdf/RE_GSR_2009_Update.pdf

But since you are concerned about Chinese CO2-emissions why don't you simply stop buying consumer goods instead of blaming others for your own shortcomings?
After all nobody forces you to buy consumer goods manufactured in China.