Unless noted, these comments apply to land-based, not off-shore wind,
Wind provides very little electricity for the investment
The capacity factor (CF) for most of the wind turbines installed around the United States rated 1 to 3 MW, is around 30%.
This compares with the capacity factors for baseload power as follows:
Nuclear: Over 90%
Coal-fired: Over 80%
Natural gas combined cycle (NGCC): Over 80%
Unfortunately, the inclusion of wind and solar on the grid has resulted in NGCC power plants operating in a load following manner which has lowered the reported CF to around 60%.
Even so, the amount of electricity produced by a baseload power plant is two to three times more than that produced by an existing wind turbine.
Wind turbines installed where the wind is most favorable, primarily in areas immediately east of the Rocky Mountain front range, have CFs somewhat higher, say around 38%.
But this has necessitated the construction of very expensive transmission lines to bring the electricity to where it can be used.
Life Expectancy
Wind turbines are expected to last for 20 to 25 years before they need to be replaced.
Baseload power plants last a great deal longer.
Nuclear power plants are expected to operate for 80 years.
Coal-fired and NGCC power plants are expected to last for 60 years.
Less investment is required for NGCC plants
Wind turbines cost around $1,500 per KW to build.
NGCC plants are being built for a cost of $1,000 per KW.
Unfortunately, coal-fired power plants can no longer be built in the United States due to EPA regulations limiting CO2 emissions.
China is building a large number of the latest design high efficiency low emissions (HELE) coal-fired plants and is gaining a leadership position in this technology.
China is also constructing HELE power plants in other countries.
Wind turbines need to be replaced every 20 to 25 years, which results in a cumulative investment roughly four times greater than for an NGCC power plant for an operating lifespan of 60 years.
Wind turbines are also being coupled with battery storage because of their intermittency, which increases the investment requirements for wind turbines.
Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)
There is considerable misinformation on this metric with respect to wind generated electricity.
The media reports endlessly that the LCOE for wind is lower than for nuclear, coal-fired and NGCC power plants.
One source for this has been information provided by Lazard.
A close analysis of Lazard’s cost projections show they make assumptions that cannot be justified. ...
EIA information is also used to justify wind LOCEs, but for the past several years the EIA hasn’t reported actual CFs, but have reported estimated CFs for a few years in the future.
Estimated CFs require making assumptions, and assumptions are not facts.
The fact that it takes three iterations of investment for wind turbines to reach the same lifetime of operation would suggest that wind cannot have lower LCOEs.
Additionally, the cost of battery storage, a necessity for wind and solar, is not included in LCOE calculations.
Environmental Factors
Pollutants from coal-fired and NGCC power plants have been dramatically reduced since smog was an issue.
Chart from EPA Website, July, 2021:
Blades from wind turbines cannot be recycled and must be disposed of in landfills.
Given there are three blades per wind turbine, the number of blades that must be disposed of is huge.
Reliability
Wind cannot be relied on to provide electricity when needed.
Only baseload power, i.e, nuclear, coal-fired and NGCC power plants, can provide electricity 24/7.
Conclusion
Wind turbines are inefficient, costly, and unreliable, with few benefits."
Don Dears background information for the article:
"When we flip the switch, the lights come on without anyone thinking about it.
This has only been true for the last hundred years in metropolitan areas, and for only approximately eighty years in rural areas with the enactment of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936.
In 1935, only 25 percent of rural homes in the United States had electricity, and there are people alive today who grew up without electricity.
Today, few people are even aware of the monolithic system that generates, distributes, and controls the electricity that flows with seeming effortlessness across the United States.
This system is referred to as the grid, which is actually three grids covering the entire lower forty-eight states.
Over the past one hundred years, there have been only two area-wide blackouts affecting over 30 million people caused by a failure of the transmission system.
There have been other blackouts—mostly caused by storms—affecting smaller groups, perhaps as many as several million people.
Overall, the grid has worked remarkably well.
Reliability can still be improved upon, but this is primarily a question of placing transmission and distribution lines underground to minimize weather-induced outages.
Suddenly, we are faced with a threat to the grid we haven’t seen before.
It is a threat that can dramatically increase blackouts and the suffering that accompanies them.
Some in leadership positions have viewed climate change as an existential threat to mankind and have implemented actions to eliminate fossil fuels from the generation of electricity.
Some have claimed that wind and solar and other renewables can replace all the coal-fired, natural gas, and nuclear power plants in the United States.
It can be argued that the actions these people are taking are making electricity more costly and less reliable, and placing Americans at risk for little or no reason.
They are willing to gamble the safety and lives of Americans, as well as the American economy, on an ideology.
Our nation has suffered through a medical war fighting COVID-19 in which thousands died.
As my neighbor said,
“The inability of our country to anticipate the corona-virus pandemic and put in place adequate reserves of all of the things we needed—PPE, ventilators, masks, tests, hospital beds, etc.—speaks loudly and directly to the need for reliable on-demand electricity and the need to plan for it right now.”
Imagine if Americans had to suffer through rolling blackouts while quarantined at home during a future pandemic.
How would newly erected emergency hospitals operate without electricity, let alone our existing hospitals without diesel fuel or natural gas to power emergency generators?
This was brought home by an oped in the Washington Post. Quoting from the op-ed:
Residential use is up as workers and school children stay home.
[Demand is down] in locked up restaurants, offices and factories.
Hospitals are a different story:
They consume twice as much per square foot as hotels . . . lead schools and office buildings by an even greater margin.
And their work couldn’t be more vital as they confront the novel coronavirus.
A grid operator, sequestered in his dispatch center in East Greenbush, New York, said it all, “Keeping the lights on. . . . It’s so critical.”3
There is little doubt there will be another pandemic.
The only question is when.
We must do what is needed to guarantee adequate and reliable supplies of electricity in preparation for the next pandemic.
President Trump recognized the vital importance of the grid when he issued an executive order on May 1, 2020, to protect the grid from foreign adversaries.
He said the grid, “provides the electricity that sup- ports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, economy, and way of life.”
There is also an ideology that threatens the grid.
This book will examine how federal regulators, state governments, utility companies, and the operators of the grid themselves are imposing their beliefs about climate change on all Americans and placing the grid in great jeopardy.
Unelected bureaucrats and self-imposed intelligentsia are making decisions that place all Americans in danger.
Looming Energy Crisis will show you why we must continue to use fossil fuels and why we must protect the grid from the actions of those who are imposing their personal beliefs on the rest of us.
Our objective should be low-cost reliable electricity available for everyone.
Reliability is a national security issue."