Comments on: Cost Estimates of T. Boone's Colossal Wind Farm Keep Rising

By: John

John — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 22:55:09 +0000

I would like to add just a few other notes here that seemed to be overlooked about any comparison to costs. How many full time employees does it cost to run a Nuclear power plant/ And what is the annual payroll cost?
Let’s do the same for a wind farm for employee cost. I may not be a rocket scientist, but I would guess the payroll and other employee costs significently less with wind verses Nuclear. That is where the real cost savings are with wind.
Now calculate that into the 60 year scenario. And don’t forget, the wind is free, while the nuclear material to keep the reactor running has a price tag as well.
Also the sunk cost to set up the facility seems less expensive for wind. GE 2.5 turbines are $3.5 mil furnished and installed according to their website. This article does not give a count on how many wind turbins are in Pickens’ wind farm.
I think a bit more COST accounting needs to be examined in the comparison of wind to nuclear.
And the big answer to maintaining wind power consistancy for peak hours when there is no wind . . . we don’t need no stinkin’en batteries, we need to convert unused electricity into Hydrogen. We are still awaiting the coming of the hydrogen automobile, aren’t we??? So let’s get a head start on manufacturing a hydrogen storage facility along the windmills to convert unused electricity into hydrogen, which can be stored, and later reconverted to electricity for peak demand, or for that automobile runnung on hydrogen.
So does anyone know how much a hydrogern facility would cost?
And frankly, I think T. Boone Pickens is paying some higher that normal costs, but this is a private entity and he is free to pay anyone any price he wants to pay.

By: Joe Archer

Joe Archer — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:58:43 +0000

KUDOs

I'm real skeptical about the costs I see quoted for wind power, not to mention the other renewables. The wind power institute is quoting something like 6.5 cents a KwH but I'm guessing they exclude those issues of capacity factor. Can you add some info on where your numbers come from. Thanx for telling it like it is. Environmentalists make the robber barrens, the railroads of the 19th century, and J.P. Morgan look like Sunday school teachers.

By: T. Boone’s Wind Plans Halved & Headed North

T. Boone’s Wind Plans Halved & Headed North — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:01:43 +0000

[...] get his wind farms built up North in the shorter term and later on in Texas in the longer term. But as he put it on Living on Earth ,”[E]verything has gotta happen fast for me, because I’m 80 years old.” In the wind [...]

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:58:57 +0000

This stuff is crazy. Wind generated power runs about 30 cents a kWatt and Solar about 50 cents. Compare this to all other generating sources at about 8 cents. WE WILL PAY FOR THIS difference in our bills, and WHY? AND it gets worse. Wind only blows about 1/3 of the time, then what do we do? Solar is good for about 1/2 the time AT BEST. The insanity continues. Last night I saw a PBS story where people were working on ways to store wind and solar power for when the wind does not blow and the sun does nto shine. How much will that add to the cost of a KW? Insane.

This is one hundred percent stupidity and political.

There is ZERO reason for any of this. Ok, you believe in global warming. Let's take a step back. HELLO!!!! Nuclear power produces ZERO carbon and costs 6 to 8 cents per KW. HELLO!

Stop the insanity.

And if you worry about nuclear waste, which is also silly, but ok; look into nuclear power generated from Thorium.

By: Bruce Oksol

Bruce Oksol — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:09:58 +0000

Any update on this project?

By: John Case

John Case — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:22:14 +0000

As a country, we Americans should spend massive amounts of our taxpayer dollars to eliminate coal energy production completely. Even though we have over a hundred years of reserves and unfavorable emissions are gradually reducing.

Maybe we should focus entirely on geothermal energy, except the construction cost are high per kwh, and the good sites tend to be in remote areas we should not spoil.

Let’s move completely to solar panels and cover or shade large swaths of land. But then we would have to engineer huge battery capacity for overnight demand.

Maybe we should just raise wind turbines, but we still need the batteries and watch out for flying ice and shattered blades.

That leaves nuclear, biomass, hydro, natural gas and others with their own unique benefits and drawbacks.

The point here is that they ALL have their place to help us meet our growing energy demands. What we really need is the methodology to put these new, cleaner, and renewable electrons into our cars so we can stop exporting trillions of dollars each year to maintain our crude oil addiction

By: solargroupies

solargroupies — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:07:43 +0000

Yeah, Pickens' turbines were not turning. In the meantime, our nuclear power plant was shut down due to abnormalities and we still have no place to safely store the radioactive waste for 500,000 years, the climate is destabilizing faster than they thought, with irreversible damage and you are putting down wind power???

By: chris451

chris451 — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:02:48 +0000

I flew over picken's wind farm near pampa, Tx. None of the turbines were turning. Weather was calm for a couple of days.

By: Suzy M

Suzy M — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:12:59 +0000

In the US, nuclear waste disposal costs are built into the rates (as part of operating/liscensing costs the plant is charged by the NRC). NRC also has charges for security, inspections, etc. This is why operations costs are a bit higher than other fuel sources, but this is balance by low cost for fuel, which is also much much less volatile than gas, coal and petroluem. Per nuclearInfo.com the disposal cost works out to be ~0.2 cents /kWh.

By: Harold T

Harold T — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 13:14:27 +0000

What seems to get lost in the discussion is cost per operating KW. As a consumer my main concern is cost per KW, proponents of different sources of green energy seem to want to minimize that. If you have 100,000 people or better on energy assistance at current rates, how many would you have if you drove power prices up 20%? Most low income people are working and don't want assistance from the government. In my state I see upper income people such as university professors advocating for green power, but they can afford it. It's also wise to consider WHAT'S IN IT FOR PICKENS. Living in a northern state keeping warm can be expensive?