Karl Rove Says Extending Key Wind Tax Credit ‘Should Be A Priority’

June 11, 2012

Mike Barnard says:

The PTC only partially offsets the much larger and longer term market distorting subsidies that the fossil fuel, hydro and nuclear industries still have after decades and even hundreds of years.  Eliminate those, and wind would be even more competitive.  Add in even a portion of the negative externalities of fossil fuels and coal would stop dead while NG would merely be slowed substantially.

http://www.quora.com/Clean-Energy/Renewable-Energy-What-are-the-ways-bey...

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June 10, 2012

Willem Post says:

The wind turbine industry is fully mature, its technology well-developed. Only marginal improvements in efficiency are possible going foreward.

The four-year phase out of the PTC should be 1.5 c/kWh in 2013, 1.0 c/kWh in 2014, 0.5 c/kWh in 2015, and zero thereafter.

After 22 years of PTC and other subsidies, the industry should finally stand on its own.

Wind energy resembles a marginal, government-subsidized "worker", who sporadically shows up, usually at night, in a 24-hour convenience store, and, while making loud noises that upset nearby people, promptly starts rearranging the displays at random, causing extra work for the other employees to maintain the store's attractiveness to customers, which raises the cost of operating the business, i.e., higher prices for goods and services, smaller wage increases, less profits and less tax revenue for governments.

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June 8, 2012

Willem Post says:

Wind energy has many federal and state subsidies; the PTC is just one of them.

Wind energy technology is mature. The PTC has existed for about 22 years. It is time to phase it out as follows: year #1 1.5 c/kWh; year #2 1.0 c/kWh; year #3 0.5 c/kWh; year #4 0.0 c/kWh. This will provide a measure of certainty for planning purposes.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/6/wind-down-wind-subsidies/

Because wind energy is variable and intermittent, it requires backup by quick-ramping, open cycle gas turbine generators that ramp up when wind energy ebbs and ramp down when it surges which occurs at least 100 times per day. Such part-load-ramping operation is inefficient and requires extra fuel/kWh and emits extra CO2/kWh. The extras mostly offset what wind energy was meant to reduce, as proven by analysis of the Eirgrid, Texas and Colorado grid operations data.

What makes wind energy even less attractive is that some recent studies show CO2 emission reductions due to wind energy are not anywhere near to what is claimed by wind energy promoters. These studies are based on 1/4-hour and 1-hour grid operations data. 

Energy systems engineers, with decades of experience analyzing energy systems, have analyzed the real-time, 1/4-hour grid operations data published by EirGrid, manager of the Irish grid:

- CO2 emissions

- wind energy produced

- total energy produced

Note: The EirGrid CO2 emissions data are understated, because they do not account for the extra emissions due to startups and shutdowns and due to ramping to accommodate wind energy to the grid.

The engineers were expecting a CO2 emissions reduction of 70 to 90 % of the values claimed by wind energy promoters. Their usual claim (without any measurements) is a 1:1 ratio, i.e., one MWh of “clean” wind energy offsets one MWh of “dirty” fossil fuel energy and its associated CO2. However, the engineers were surprised the data showed so little a reduction of CO2 emissions compared to what is claimed. 

In case of the Irish grid, it was found during wind speed periods with 12% wind energy on the grid, there was only a 4% reduction of CO2 emissions, i.e., the CO2 emissions reduction was only 1/3 of the claimed reduction for this share of wind energy. 

It was also found, the greater the wind energy percent on the grid, the lower the ratio, i.e., adding more wind energy (increasingly roiling the grid) becomes less and less effective for CO2 emissions reduction, and it was found the ratio will ultimately go to zero and then become negative, i.e., adding more wind energy to the grid will INCREASE CO2 emissions. 

See Section 4. of http://www.clepair.net/IerlandUdo.html

In general, for grids with low ANNUAL wind energy percent, such as the 0.6% on the New England grid, the ratio is about 0.95 during greater wind speed periods. The ratio will decrease as more wind energy is added to the grid. Greater wind energy percent on the grid requires a greater capacity of generators in starting-stopping mode, in spinning mode, and in part-load-ramping mode, which increases their fuel consumption/kWh and CO2 emissions/kWh. 

Note: About 10-15 % of the hours of the year there is zero wind energy because wind speeds are too low to turn the rotors (7.5 mph) or too high for safety.

Note: About 65-70 % of the hours of the year there is minimal or zero PV solar energy, and it cannot be turned off/curtailed, as the Germans are finding out, when on rare, sunny summer days in Southern Germany solar energy surges to about 12,000 MW to 14,000 MW and has to be partially exported to France and the Czech Republic at fire sale prices, 5.5 euro cent/kWh or less, after having been subsidized at an average of about 50 euro cent/kWh.

The above study results could only be determined because EirGrid publishes real-time, 1/4- hour grid operations data. Almost all grid operators HAVE those data, but do not publish them because: 

- they are not required to, or they do not want to. 

- wind turbine owners claim their data are propriatary.

- wind turbine owners have lobbied legislatures to maintain the “do-not-tell” staus quo. 

Because the real-time, 1/4-hr data is generally lacking, it became possible for government leaders and wind energy promoters to make unrealistic CO2 emissions reduction claims using studies based on estimates, probabilities, algorithms, assumptions, modeling, weather forecasts, etc., and thereby maintain a spell of deception and delusion regarding the claimed benefits of wind energy.

The deception: The above shows that too many renewable energy certificates, RECs, are being granted to wind energy producers than is warrented based on their actual CO2 emissions reduction. 

The delusion: People have been led to believe by government leaders and wind energy promoters that wind energy is “doing something about climate change”. It turns out the net effect is much less.

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/64492/wind-energy-reduces-co2-emissions-few-percent

http://www.clepair.net/IerlandUdo.html 

http://docs.wind-watch.org/BENTEK-How-Less-Became-More.pdf

http://www.clepair.net/windSchiphol.html 

http://www.clepair.net/Udo-okt-e.html

http://www.clepair.net/Udo-curtail201205.html 

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June 7, 2012

Joe Hall says:

Republicans just can't get their head straight on this country's energy future.  What is Karl Rove doing backing wind energy while the entire conservative establishment is trying to take down the entire renewable energy industry?  Just a stunner.  One more reason President Obama needs to be re-elected...

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June 6, 2012

Richard Huber says:

Rove is not important enough to boost anything -- he does however make a fool of Republicans. Take the politics out?  Really Karl.

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