STORING THE WIND: A phalanx of batteries will store electricity produced by wind turbines in West Virginia.
Image: timmenzies/Flickr
ELKINS, W.Va. -- On top of the wooded green, orange and red rain-soaked hills near here, AES Wind Generation LLC, a subsidiary of AES Corp., yesterday unveiled its new grid-scale power storage system, the largest facility of its kind in the world.
The energy storage system is part of AES Laurel Mountain, a 13-mile stretch of 61 wind turbines traversing Barbour and Randolph counties. "We've never put wind and storage in one location [before today]," said Phil Harrington, AES's president of global wind generation. "The combination of these resources together holds the promise of grid stability."
The 80-meter-tall turbines, manufactured by General Electric Co., feed into the PJM Interconnection, the largest power market in the world, spanning the American Northeast and Midwest and serving 51 million people. The wind generators provide 1.6 megawatts each, forming a 97.6 MW array.
The adjacent storage system, held in off-white converted shipping containers midway along the ridge, retains and distributes 32 MW of emissions-free electricity, more than double the size of AES's previous grid storage facility. The generation and storage plant will supply more than 260,000 megawatt-hours of energy annually.
Inside, the storage containers resemble a computer server room, with identical banks of imposing black cabinets, small blinking lights and the incessant whirring of a chilled air cooling system. The cabinets house modules containing lithium-ion cells, each about the size of a standard C cell.
The battery technology is similar to what powers laptops and cellphones, but it also makes an attractive option for storing energy to distribute along an electric grid. "Generally, batteries would provide a quick response. That's one of the advantages. It can satisfy the [electricity] demand according to the detailed requirements of wherever it is," said Gary Yang, a laboratory fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Lithium-ion is the most efficient battery ... with over 90 percent efficiency."
Yang said that lithium-ion batteries are superior in many ways to existing storage options. Currently, the most common form of grid-level energy storage involves pumping water uphill in times of surplus energy and channeling it down through a turbine in times of excess demand. Such a process, unlike battery storage, requires a specific type of terrain and substantial upfront costs, according to Yang. Other storage technologies include compressing air underground or spinning flywheels, both of which also face issues of siting and cost.
Augmenting a fickle power source
The drive for energy storage comes from wind and solar power's growth and the need to address their shortfalls. "Renewable power varies over minutes, hours, days and even seasons. In order to maintain the balance, you need to make some adjustments," said Yang. "Overall, technologies including batteries are seen as a key enabler for the future grid or 'smart grid' that integrates a significant level of renewables."
Grid batteries fit into existing models of power production and management. "The storage technology provides power in much the same way a power plant does," said Chris Shelton, president of AES Energy Storage LLC, noting that the lithium-ion cells can rapidly raise or lower the amount of energy they discharge into the grid. "The novelty here is that we have a commercial energy storage system."
The dynamic scaling is important for the Laurel Mountain storage facility because its objective is not just power distribution during off-peak production, but reserve capacity and regulation. This involves providing a consistent, smooth power output that scales to the demand and shortfalls in production. "It's a critical service, but it's not well known," said John Zahurancik, vice president of AES Energy Storage, explaining that the batteries soak up excess juice and release it as needed.
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52 Comments
Add CommentI have often wondered why the cheapest and simplest answer to the problem of the storage of alternative energy is not more discussed. I am of course talking about pumping water to a higher elevation when the power is not otherwise needed and recovering it through hydro-electric generation when it is. I guess it is like solar hot water, economically effective but too old fashioned and therefore not "cool".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese windmills are "manufactured" by GE in China.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPumped hydro is a fraction the cost of batteries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would cost a buck a kwh to add enough green storage to eliminate gas backup bankrupting the country.
Most of the energy in the current wind/gas backup scam comes from burning the filthy gas in low efficiency fast spooling units. Far cheaper, far less GHG's to skip the wind and use high efficiency gas units.
At least this is a reasonable method to make wind power or even solar more effective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is probably still better to use the wind produced energy to generate a fuel like hydrogen, which can be used later and is likely less of an impact than installing billions of lithium batteries all over the country to achieve the same effect. Still this is at least viable option to creating and using energy efficiently.
How many tax payers’ dollars are involved? I notice there is no mention of costs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see they have a $1.58 billion agreement with the China Investment Corporation but I have tired of trying to access their Annual reports that are supposedly available on line but I can not get them to open. Generally, though not necessarily in this case, companies are shy about how much the long suffering taxpayers are contributing to green schemes.
A further report on the project can be seen here: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/aes-wind-generation-and-aes-energy-storage-announce-commercial-operation-of-laurel-mountain-wind-facility-combining-energy-storage-and-wind-generation-2011-10-27
The tax payers in West Virginia is funding the greatest majority of this project and will continue to do so with increased electric bills...the Public Service Commission of West Virginia will make sure of that. West Virginia is the second poorest state in the nation and projects like this one will keep them at the lowest level of poverty...dumb, barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInstead of using the most expensive storage system in the country - lithium, they should've used a liquid salt battery; it has been around for years, and they could've built it right on site; placed solar panels on top to aid the wind turbine's extra electricity to heat the salt and turn it to liquid during the day - pump water through the hot pipes at night by using downhill flow and the steam hitting turbines would create electricity at night, all night long. The wind turbines will even create electricity at night to keep the salt hot. This would take a fraction of the cost of those lithium batteries.
But what can you expect from West Virginia; the people are still living back in the 1700's and have no communications with the outside world...except what their government wants them to have, and if the people do wise up, their government will just overpower their wishes like they did in the 2008 presidential election by taking the people's vote away from Mrs. Clinton and giving it to President Obama.
Finally, a Wind Site that actually tries to mitigate its Grid Integration costs. Invariably, those costs are paid by the Utility and the public - a additional subsidy for Renewable Energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNote that these batteries are only to dampen the surges in power that Wind Power is notorious for. Power from Wind is proportional to the cube of Wind Speed, so if a Wind gust that doubles in speed (quite common) could result in an eight-fold increase in power output.
The actual storage of the 8 MWh battery would only supply 1/3rd of the Wind Farm's rated output for 15 mins. Not a significant Energy Storage.
So the battery system will add $28.8M to the $250M cost of the Project. To generate a lousy 30MW of avg power output, most of it useless, due to intermittency. $9.3k per kwavg, plus transmission costs. Nuclear less than half that cost, but for useful power.
The cycling effects of Wind on the shadowing Fossil Fuel power plants have been proven to cause NO NET FUEL SAVINGS - in other words, in most cases, Wind Power is a TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY!
These studies directly use CO2 data that is provided by the utility, to prove Wind Power DOES NOT REDUCE Emissions:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHolland:
http://www.clepair.net/windSchiphol.html
"...In the USA a BENTEK study used real emission data of power plants in Texas and Colorado. They became available due to the Freedom of Information Act. Its conclusion was: wind has no visible influence on fuel consumption for electricity production and the emission of CO2 in the atmosphere is not reduced..."
"...The smoking gun of the windmill fraud'. He showed that a substantial wind contribution in the Irish Republic caused such a small saving of fuel (and of CO2 emissions), that it shattered a major tenet of the wind policy. He also was able to show that more wind penetration caused an increase of CO2 emission8.
The real situation, however, is even worse. The way EirGrid derives its data on CO2 emission does not correlate with what is actually happening in fossil fuel power plants. Moreover the Irish data does not include some other serious factors that further undermine the desired fuel savings. There is evidence that the overall CO2 emission in Ireland can be ~20% higher than the emission calculated in the EirGrid tables, as Udo showed. (His source: ref. 14. A difference of 3% might be due to the importing of electricity. Transport losses have been accounted for.)
We believe even Udo's figures to be conservative. On the basis of existing data plus new information on the behavior of conventional generators when they are cycling (i.e. ramping up and down in order to compensate for the variations in wind power) we shall show how much worse the influence of adding wind electricity to the grid really is..."
"...The wind projects do not fulfill 'sustainable' objectives. They cost more fuel than they save and they cause no CO2 saving, in the contrary they increase our environmental 'foot print'.
A decision to invest thousands of millions Euros in the construction of wind developments 'to save fossil fuel and to reduce CO2 emission' is irresponsible. There are no savings, THERE IS LOSS! ..."
Ireland:
http://www.clepair.net/IerlandUdo.html
Colorado & Texas:
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/BENTEK-How-Less-Became-More.pdf
This success story is good news.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile it is not in the purview of this article, it would be interesting to know if the federal or state government were involved in loan guarantees, how much carbon-dumping into the atmosphere will be avoided by using wind turbines instead of goal or gas, where the hardware was manufactured, how many temporary and permanent jobs were made available, and the economic and environmental impact on the people in the area of this facility.
"dwbd", this is the craziest bunch of bull crap I've ever heard come out of the mouth of an idiot. How does wind turbines, that is powered by the wind, create CO2. The last time I checked, wind is not a fossil fuel that creates deadly pollution, and it costs $50 billion to build a nuclear power plant, and $300 million to build that windmill with the batteries is a far cry from the $50 billion it takes to build the nuclear power plant, and the last time I checked, nuclear is ran on fossil fuel that creates very deadly pollution. When they say a fool is born every minute, I think they just keep recycling you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen the wind, Sun, heat of the Earth or the waves of the ocean or river flows are producing free electricity, how is that not a savings? Did you catch the word there "free"? These sources of energy produces "Free" electricity and does not produce CO2 or CO1 and they do not need gas, natural gas, or nuclear to make them function.
There are no people living in the area of that facility; it is isolated out on a mountain top removal coal project, and because of West Virginia's racist attitude, the then Governor Joe Manchine, would not take funding from the Obama administration and he, the now Senator Joe Manchine, will not give incentives to encourage people to invest in EVs, electric vehicles or clean energy like solar or wind to power their individual homes and businesses. The greatest majority of that plants price comes out of the West Virginia's tax payer's pocket and the Public Service Commission of West Virginia will greatly increase peoples utility bills to pay the company, AES Corp. back their investment in the project that came from their profit they got from the coal and oil burning power plants. Yes, the West Virginia people will pay that company back the $300 million it took to build and operate that windmill project.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo you EVER have any sources for your misinformed opinions? Seriously, if you EVER want people to believe you, you'll have to do more than just spout off whatever you feel like. And no, unsourced blog posts are just as unbelievable as your unsourced article comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJamesDavis, I know you have extreme difficulty reading anything more advanced than a comic book, but you might just try for the first time to understand something tech - give it a try.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs the studies by Engineers in Ireland, Holland, Texas & Colorado, using actual Utility CO2 data show, Wind Turbines do not reduce CO2 emissions, more or less, depending on Grid Mix. This is because, the effect of fluctuating Wind on the Coal & Gas power plants that must Shadow the Wind Turbines causes increased fuel consumption in those power plants, and also makes more system power come from lower efficiency, low capital cost fossil fuel power plants. This has been analyzed in detail using actual coal & gas turbine characteristics here:
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/04/case-study-on-methods-of-industrial-scale-wind-power-analysis-part-i/
"...and it costs $50 billion to build a nuclear power plant..."
The most expensive, First-Of-A-Kind, super safety engineered GenIII Areva EPR, at Olkiluoto 3, Finland with large cost inflation, due to lack of experience and an incompetent regulator in Finland, is supposed to be 3.7B Euro, but cost inflation has brought the cost to 6.4B Euro or US$8.8B for a large 1650 MWe plant. A far cry from Davis' make believe $50B - an absurd statement which proves he is devoid of intellectual honesty. And even at that high price it is a good deal cheaper than Wind, except Wind as has been shown, is pretty much a useless form of Energy and has the effect of encouraging Fossil Fuel consumption:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/10/21/tcase15/
80-90% of the primary energy of the Wind/Fossil Fuel system energy will be fossil fuel. So how is that going to reduce fossil fuel consumption?
The round trip efficiency of a hydrogen storage system is around 1/2 that of a battery storage system. You'll have to build 2x the wind turbines to get the same energy with H as you do with batteries, doubling the cost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisElectrolyzer (80% eff) * support equip (compressor, purifier, H2 storage system, etc. take 10% of the energy to run) * Fuel cell (50% eff) = 36% of original ELECTRICAL energy left to do work. A lithium ion battery has a round-trip efficiency of around 85%.
The best option will be to use millions of idle electric car batteries as a distributed storage system with millions of kWh of aggregrated storage. Since people park their cars an average of 23 hours a day, using their batteries to do double-duty and shallow-discharge to support the grid will make EV owners a big chunk of change.
the "study" you linked to is not peer-reviewed and it shows:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"For geographic reasons, most wind development locations don’t have this option anyway [pumped hydro storage]. This is certainly the case in the Netherlands."
FALSE! The Netherlands and Denmark use hydropower in Norway and Sweden as geographically separated pumped storage. The storage comes in when there is a lot of wind power being generated and the Nordic countries throttle down their hydropower.
"The generator running stationary for some time at 100% of its optimal capacity reduced its output to 80% and up again to 100%. The whole cycle took place in one hour....There is good evidence, that this measurement is representative of the conventional segment."
What evidence? They present NONE to make this anecdotal evidence reputable enough to be a general statement. Saying that this one instance is "representative" is lazy and sloppy science.
"We have seen recently that a whole wind project in the Netherlands with that supposed life time had to be renewed after 12 years. Subsidy regulations applied by the government are based on a write off in 15 years. Considering what is known (and unknown) we feel that 15 years is more realistic.
We shall incorporate the energy costs factor in our subsequent calculations with a life time of 15 years. To appease the wind fans, we'll add a line based on 30 years. (Note: 30 years seems excessive.)"
More sloppy science with their clearly biased agenda sticking out for everyone to see. Again, taking one anecdote and extending it to ALL windfarms is a repeating logical fallacy the author is making.
The fact remains that variable electricity DEMAND throws FAR more uncertainty into the electrical system than wind power can. Air conditioners turn on and off, machinery starts up and shuts down and lighting goes on and off with almost TOTAL unpredictability while wind conditions can be predicted hours or days in advance. Even without a lot of wind power, the electric utility is ALREADY changing the output of its plants CONSTANTLY. The REAL problem is that government policy and incentives saddled us with these huge, non-responsive and highly-polluting plants to begin with.
That's why you guys are mostly wrong; you think a clearly-biased BLOG is a reputable source. Who's checking "bravenewclimate" anyway? WHERE are they getting their information? Their title seems to invoke the nutty conspiracy theory that climate change is just a ruse to make people a bunch of Socialists living in huts. You're going to trust THOSE guys over legitimate science?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...best option will be to use millions of idle electric car batteries as a distributed storage system ..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProblem with that is you want to supply energy to the grid in the daytime/early evening just when people want to drive. And I sure wouldn't want to ruin my expensive EV battery on a $30-40k vehicle to help the Utility out, sure way to void battery warranty. No way that would pay. EV batteries are extreme battery tech, they need to be light, they need to resist serious collision, they need extensive thermal management for a compact, enclosed storage space and most of all they need an extremely high power/energy ratio, that means an expensive, shorter life battery.
Utility grade batteries have none of the above limitations, so they are about 25% the cost of EV Traction batteries with a longer life. Even still at $150/kwh, in order to store one days worth of energy that's 24x$150/80%eff = $4,500/kw. With replacement after 5 yrs or ~3,000 cycles. That's more than a Nuclear Power plant, that would replace the storage and generate the power of the $10-40k/kw Wind & Solar, and last for 60-80yrs, not 5 yrs. And Wind & Solar have one week lulls, over large areas, And extreme seasonal fluctuations.
"...FALSE! The Netherlands .. use hydropower in Norway and Sweden as geographically separated pumped storage..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is true for Denmark, I'm not so sure about Netherlands. For them, you are looking at ~1200km, round trip ~2400km, to Norway Hydro. At >$1000/km-kwpk for transmission lines that's $2.4k/.7eff=$3.4k per kwpk to store Wind in Norway Pumped Hydro or ~$2.6k per kwpk if Norway has surplus Hydro. So you are looking at max 50% utilization of the transmission lines putting you over $5.2 to $6.8k per kw for storing wind, not including the Capital Cost of the Hydro being utilized for that purpose. Far more expensive than the Nuclear Power plant which would replace the storage, and the Hydro and the Wind Turbines. And Denmark is having to pay Norway to take its Wind - called Negative Floor pricing - exporting Wind subsidies to Norway. And there are further complications with storing Wind in Hydro/Pumped Hydro. See:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/04/05/pumped-hydro-system-cost/
"..."study" you linked to is not peer-reviewed..."
Another typical COP-OUT of Greenies when they are unable to counter an argument or hard data. The references, calculations straight from published Utility data is all there, your evasion proves that you have no counter-argument for the consistent results over several analysis'.
"...fact remains that variable electricity DEMAND throws FAR more uncertainty into the electrical system than wind power can..."
Utter nonsense. Here is a graph of Wind Power for all of Germany for January:
http://i47.tinypic.com/8xjuw6.jpg
Here is a typical Utility Demand curve:
http://www.theimo.com/
Here is Utility Demand & Wind Farm output for all of Australia:
http://windfarmperformance.info/documents/analysis/monthly/aemo_wind_201009_hhour.pdf
The Utility Demand is consistent, predictable & smooth, whereas the Wind is inconsistent, unpredictable and irregular. Even so, with Smart Metering citizens are being charged for their Peak Usage, in Ontario double non-Peak, whereas Wind Farms which cause the same Peak Demand costs, except much worse. Wind daily fluctuations from 8%-90% of capacity. Utility Consumer demand gradual increase from 70% to 100% daily. Supplying Consumer Peak can be scheduled with a daily shift at the peaking NG power plant, mostly efficient CCGT and cheap nightime Hydro can be stored for supplying some of the daily peak. Wind cannot be scheduled daily and mostly fuel guzzling OCGT must be used. And yet, unlike the consumer, Wind is not charged for its EXTREME Peak Demand costs.
"..."bravenewclimate" anyway? ...Their title seems to invoke the nutty conspiracy theory that climate change is just a ruse..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNope. Run by Professor Barry Brook, from Wikipedia:
"...professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide, where he holds the Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change. He is also Director of Climate Science at the Environment Institute. He has a B.Sc.(Hons I) and Ph.D. from Macquarie University. He is a member of the South Australian Premier's Climate Change Council, Premier's Science and Research Council and the not-for-profit Science Council for Global Initiatives.
He has published three books and over 170 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and regularly writes opinion pieces and popular articles for the media. He is known for his work in ecological systems models, conservation biology and climate change impacts. He is a strong advocate for nuclear power as a sustainable energy source, especially the Integral Fast Reactor.[1] His most recent book is Why vs Why: Nuclear Power..."
If he isn't legitimate science I don't know what is.
"they need extensive thermal management for a compact, enclosed storage space and most of all they need an extremely high power/energy ratio, that means an expensive, shorter life battery. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDouble wrong! The Nissan Leaf's battery is air-cooled and has a 100,000-mile warranty to boot! And where do you get that high power to weight ratio batteries have a shorter life? Those are apples to oranges, man!
Actually, the low end for cost estimates for Gen III+ Nuclear reactor construction in the developed world is around $4,500/kW with several RECENT real-world examples coming in much higher. The lowball costs for Chinese reactors are not realistic since they have lax environmental and safety laws, continuously deflate their currency, and their goevernment CONSTANTLY aids favored industries, making their reactor cost "estimates" or "actuals" worthless.
Your cost figures for EV battery $ / kWhr are around 25% too high and utility batteries will hardly EVER get fully discharged. Again, the Nissan Leaf's pack could ACTUALLY be closer to $400 / kWhr (although they're keeping these figures close to their chest for competitive reasons) and Tesla already has their battery pack down to $370 / kWhr with off-the-shelf laptop batteries!
Nuclear power plants only last 80 years because the industry is putting immense pressure on regulators to extend their operating licenses to DOUBLE the plants' inital design life. Yes, once a plant has been built, and the construction overruns absorbed by the ratepayers, and the loan defaults & reactor accident liability insurance is paid for by the government, old reactors are cash cows. Just like living in a mansion is cheap once it's paid off, am I right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, wind and solar are nowhere $10k to $40k per kW. Prof. Brook is so obsessed with the nuclear power pipedream that he is blind to the fact that wind is competitive with most NEW electric plants and is improving all the time. Solar PV is under $1 / W for panels and instillation costs are plummetting as well. With these 2 resources, we don't have run the risk of Fukushima-style meltdowns or weapons proliferation. (How in the heck did India and/or Pakistan get weapons if not for using their Civilian Nuclear Power program as cover? How in the heck can you say that Iran isn't trying to do the same thing?)
Look, Flouride Thorium reactors might be a good investment. We need to pull our support from LWR construction & research and try to get a research LFTR up and running. Certain parts of the U.S. and the world might not be able to provide 100% of their electricity via renewable energy as the 21st Century rolls on, so these would be a good backstop with much less proliferation and safety risks.
Hey, I'm not a utility expert, so I'd like to see some actual experts in this field to look over the paper and see if it is accurate or not. What's so wrong with asking for peer-review? Without it, anybody can post nonsense online that looks technical and expect people that don't know any better to think it's true. Even though I'm not an expert, the paper's bias against wind power was clearly evident and if you don't acknowledge that fact, yours is clearly evident as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo wait, peaking natural gas plants are efficient when they are satisfying demand, but they are inefficient and costly when they help even out the Negative demand that wind power provides? Make up your mind, man! Seriousl, Prof. Brook and the other papers you read are clearly biased and you're getting fed incorrect information. We already tried nuclear power and it was a fantastic flop! These guys want to blame hippies and lawyers for the failure of their pet energy technology, but the economics on nuclear power are clear. To make them safe enough to not have a Fukushima-style incident for the next 60 years, or maybe 1000 years if we store the waste on-site, they'll have to be WAY too expensive. The plants are just too expensive to build that one utility can't handle that kind of liability on their books unless the government is there as a kind of backstop. Therefore, you can't complain about sibsidies since Nuclear Power has received 10x the subsidies that Renewable Energy has gotten.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...The Nissan Leaf's battery is air-cooled...that high power to weight ratio batteries have a shorter life..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep, forced air-cooling is a type of thermal management system, & 100k warranty at US avg of 30 miles/day is 9 yrs & 833 full cycles. Try doing a full cycle a day supplying the utility with 24 kwh. Try 2 yr warranty, they would know you are abusing the battery. High Power to Weight & Power to Energy requires thinner plates which have a lower shelf life and cycle life - for the same cost/chemistry and a much lower flexibility in chemistry, as many cheaper types, like vanadium flow batteries have a low power output, but low cost. Automotive starting batteries have a much lower life than lead-acid storage batteries. Same issue.
"...Nissan Leaf's pack could ACTUALLY be closer to $400 / kWhr..."
Yep, and I used $150/kwh, not $400/kwh and that's $4.5k/kw for a 1 kwavg system. Except I neglected to add the cost of the inverter/switchgear which is ~$1k/kwavg output. So we are up to $5.5k/kw for a lousy 24hrs storage.
"...low end for cost estimates for Gen III+ Nuclear reactor construction in the developed world is around $4,500/kW..."
That's less than your battery storage, never mind the cost of the Wind Turbines and the long distance transmission lines and the >70% of peak output NG power plant backup. And I thought you greenies worst case, much touted example of Nuclear Cost overruns was the FOAK Olkiluoto 3, Areva EPR in Finland, at $8.8k/kw. Where's those huge learning curve cost reductions that you happily keep applying to Solar & Wind, in spite of the fact that those are fully mature, factory produced, assembly-line manufactured, broadly based tech for > a decade now. While the Areva is a FOAK plant, no factory production, let alone assembly-line manufactured. 2010 OECD cost estimates for GenIII Nuclear:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/59/50/45528378.pdf
puts USA @ $3.4k/kw, France @ $3.9k/kw (EPR), Japan @ $3.1k/kw, Germany @ $4.1k/kw, Korea @ $1.6k/kw.
As for China, their Wind Turbines are about 70% the cost of Western Countries - so add a 1.4X multiplier to see REAL cost of GenIII Nuclear, once you remove the blockades put in place by Big Oil/NG/Coal Vested Interests and their Surrogates in the Renewables Industry & ENGO's or Greenie Organizations, which I have shown many times get OUTRAGEOUS funding from Oil Family Foundations, you know, the 0.01 PERCENTERS.
"...Nuclear power plants only last 80 years because the industry is putting immense pressure..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, they are designing the GenIII's now with 60-80 yr lifetimes.
"...Also, wind and solar are nowhere $10k to $40k per kW...Solar PV is under $1 / W for panels..."
Nope, Wind right now is $2.5-$3.5k per kwpk, at 26% avg CF that's $10k-$14k/kwavg. And Solar, cheapest commercial installed systems are $3k per kwpk at 15% avg CF that's $20k per kwavg. 2010 US average cost per kw for Solar PV is $7.15/watt according to the NREL:
http://openpv.nrel.gov/
That's over $40k per kwavg.
"...With these 2 resources, we don't have run the risk of Fukushima-style meltdowns or weapons proliferation. ...using their Civilian Nuclear Power program as cover..."
You ARE causing Weapons Proliferation, because in your desperate quest for Oil & Gas, since you have failed to supply any alternative, Iraq (which got rid of their WMD's after Western pressure) and now Libya got invaded. This is after Libya agreed to shutdown their Weapons program in exchange for normalcy with the West - they even helped the CIA interrogate and capture terrorists. A lot of good that did them. First chance to get their Oil, NATO & the USA blasted the BEJESUS out of them. So now every two-bit country from Syria to Iran to Venezuela is going ensure they have their own Nuclear Umbrella. And virtually all countries built Nuclear Weapons BEFORE they had a civilian Nuclear Program. Any nation state can readily acquire Nuclear Weapons nowadays, using cheapo Graphite Pile reactors, Civilian Nuclear would just increase cost of doing so by a factor of 10. Just what Syria tried to do, recently.
Fukushima, was unfortunate, poor planning by the Japanese regulator and industry, easily avoidable but at least nobody was killed, vs the tsunami which killed 25,000. And by-far-and-away, much worse than the nuclear incident, was the release of thousands of tons of carcinogens, mutagens, neurotoxins, asbestos, mercury, lead, dioxins,PCB's, PAH's, raw sewage, Ozone depleting chemicals, and radioisotopes by the many Giant Oil Infernos & Gas fires, Solar Chemicals and other debris after the Tsunami/Earthquake. Every Japanese citizen is breathing, drinking & eating that crap right now. And the Ozone hole is getting bigger. And some of that toxic debris is coming to the West Coast of America.
"...peaking natural gas plants are efficient when they are satisfying demand, but they are inefficient and costly when they help even out the Negative demand that wind power..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNG power plants, supplying shoulder/peak demand can start-up in the morning and ramp-up output gradually throughout the day, covering a long ~12-15hr cycle. The slow ramp-up allows more efficient CCGT to be used, as well as Capital Cost, Maintenance & Peak NG costs are more modest, running like that. Still consumers are now being required to pay all those costs.
Wind can fluctuate considerably, even from 10-90% of rated output, over a period of hour or less. And unpredictably. That makes more efficient CCGT less likely to be used. But Wind is not paying one penny of those cycling, shadowing power plant costs.
"...Nuclear Power has received 10x the subsidies that Renewable Energy has gotten..."
Nope, USA Federal Subsidies for non-carbon emitting electricity, 1950-2006, (renewable subsidies have increased exponentially since 2006):
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/09/federal-support-for-non-carbon-dioxide.html
Solar & Wind subsidies: $45B for 0.7% of USA Electricity production
Geothermal: $7B for 0.3%
Hydro: $81B for 7%
Nuclear: $65B for 19%
Thus Hydro received 3.5X the Nuclear Subsidies per TWh of Electricity produced.
Geothermal 6.9X the subsidies of Nuclear.
And Nuclear isn't getting ZIP for subsidies anymore, whereas Wind & Solar are getting $10's of billions in the USA alone.
"Try 2 yr warranty, they would know you are abusing the battery."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one is saying they would completely cycle your battery. The utility would take a kWhr here and there over the course of the 23 hours a day the car is parked while still letting the owner leave with a fully charged battery at a pre-determined time. You distribute this over millions of vehicles, and you get enough storage to allow solar / wind / hydro / geothermal / wave / tidal / biomass to cover most of the electricity demand. LFTRs could cover the 5 - 10% of demand this arrangement could have trouble covering.
Your costs for solar are incomplete because solar generates a lot of its output near peak demand, is generated near the point of use and competes with RETAIL electricity instead of the WHOLESALE rates all you baseload-obsessed nuclear junkies are fixated on. Solar PV will eventually double as roofing material or facade, so its costs metrics will be even better still.
"High Power to Weight & Power to Energy requires thinner plates..."
-OR-
You can go for high-energy cells and just put enough of them in series to get the power levels you need. This is what Tesla is doing and what GM isn't (with the Volt). That's why the Volt's battery only has 8 or 9 kWhrs of useful energy (aside from the high power reserve requirement GM decided on to preserve acceleration capabilities under charge sustainment) and such a low Whr/kg rating. 2 totally different cars show what consequences energy density can have on a vehicle.
"Where's those huge learning curve cost reductions that you happily keep applying to Solar & Wind, in spite of the fact that those are fully mature, factory produced, assembly-line manufactured, broadly based tech for > a decade now"
Wait, you LOOOVE nuclear power, but then you say that 10 years is enough time to decide that solar and wind are MATURE technologies? Wow, your bias has corrupted your sense of logic! Well, if blogs are a credible source to you, then you'll love the fact that NUCLEAR POWER HAS A NEGATIVE LEARNING CURVE!:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/06/207833/does-nuclear-power-have-a-negative-learning-curve/
"...once you remove the blockades put in place by Big Oil/NG/Coal Vested Interests and their Surrogates in the Renewables Industry..."
Yeah, and Flouride in the drinking water is a commie plot to contaminate our precious bodily fluids!!! WOW!
Dude you lost me here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"First chance to get their Oil, NATO & the USA blasted the BEJESUS out of them."
Yes, because getting the Arab League's blessing and seeing a potential humanitarian disaster perpetrated by a paranoid madman had nothing to do with intervening in Lybia, right? Given that our action there has been an unmitigated success (we'll wait and see what kind of government comes out of there), you must be one of those "Anything Obama does is wrong" kind of people, right?
"And virtually all countries built Nuclear Weapons BEFORE they had a civilian Nuclear Program."
Yes, but NOT India and Pakistan. Their civilian power programs were excellent cover for weapons development. Any time you're using the most popular Uranium fuel cycles, there is ALWAYS a proliferation risk since they were originally developed to make weapons. If we had abandoned nuclear power in the 70s like we should have, don't you think Iran would have a terrible time explaining their weapons program as a purely civilian activity?
"Wind can fluctuate considerably, even from 10-90% of rated output, over a period of hour or less. And unpredictably. That makes more efficient CCGT less likely to be used."
Yeah, and a nuclear power plant can melt down if you hit it with a Tsunami if you want to focus on the worst-case scenario. However, if you have a widly-distributed wind energy network, those fluctuations are MUCH less likely.
"Nope, USA Federal Subsidies for non-carbon emitting electricity, 1950-2006, (renewable subsidies have increased exponentially since 2006):"
And here's your debunking, sir:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/26/328612/new-report-energy-subsidies/
Normalizing the subsidy support to the output is something nuclear boosters always do and it obscures several important facts. Firstly, Nuclear power has been producing on s commercial scale for 50 years, with CONTINUOUS support from the Feds while renewables have really only caught on in the past 10 years due to the Feds constatly interrupting federal support (See Reagan ripping solar panels off the White House installed by Carter). Nuclear gets the same production tax credit that wind does AND ALL OF ITS LIABILITY INSURANCE IS COVERED BY THE FEDS. If renewable energy plants didn't have to pay for their liability...well, it wouldn't be a big deal because the consequences of a meltdown are orders of magnitude greater than a windmill falling down.
"...The utility would take a kWhr here and there over the course of the 23 hours a day the car is parked while ...distribute this over millions of vehicles, and you get enough storage to allow solar ... to cover most of the electricity..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat idiot is going to plug in their car everywhere they go? Talk about a major pain in the butt, never mind nearly impossible & hyper-expensive for the infrastructure. Millions of vehicles, a couple kwh per day that's max say 10 million kwh. Current avg Electricity Demand in the USA is 470 GW, so you figure on storing 1.27 minutes of USA avg Electrical Production in EV batteries. Good luck on that.
"...Your costs for solar ...solar generates a lot of its output near peak demand,... RETAIL electricity instead of the WHOLESALE rates..."
Yes, solar is much better than Wind at matching Demand profile. But the truth is that Solar PV matches the 1st half of the demand profile. So you still need to shadow Solar with NG or expensive battery backup for half the day. Add bad seasonal match and you still need 2/3rds NG, 1/3rd Solar even in sunny Southern regions. In Cloudy or Northern regions, forget it, Solar is a joke, except for Solar Hot water. And it doesn't deserve Retail rate, because the Utility still has to pay for administration, local distribution, grid management and the 2/3rds Solar Backup with transmission. So why does Solar deserve a free ride on those costs?
"...high-energy cells and just put enough of them in series to get the power levels..."
Yes, that helps, but Tesla's batteries are still 3X the cost of Utility Grade batteries, that have a longer life. And even Tesla's batteries need to have a C-rating of 4 which is much higher than typical storage batteries with a rating of ~1.
"...that 10 years is enough time to decide that solar and wind are MATURE technologies..."
Nuclear development has been on hold for 30 yrs thanks to your Big Oil buddies. Solar & Wind have been around for centuries. And Wind & Solar are already produced in optimized factories, using highly efficient assembly-line production, none of which has even been started with Nuclear yet. I guess Finland is not believing in your "only Nuclear has a negative learning curve" idea, since they are getting two more of those expensive EPR's. And tell me how China, Korea & USSR can produce NPP's for <$2k per kw, and you claim that all Western Countries, the workers are so incompetent and useless they can't even do it for double that.
"...Yeah, and Flouride in the drinking water is a commie plot to contaminate our precious bodily fluids..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep, and you believe all those OCCUPY WALL ST protestors are all paranoid & delusional because they believe that Washington is run by corporate lobbyists who buy politicians so they can cheat their way into vast wealth, shutdown regulatory oversight and can screw up royally and get mega-bonuses and $trillion bailouts - yep those protesters, they're all nutty conspiracy theorists, according to you.
News to you, Big Oil/NG are five of the top ten Fortune 500 companies, and they buy politicians like I buy potatoes. I guess you figure the Iraq War was all about "getting those WMD's". Every Nuclear Power plant built costs Big Oil ~$500M per yr in NG sales. They gained $10's billions in LNG sales and a big jump in LNG prices after Japan shutdown most of its Nuclear plants. But Big Oil and mega-wealthy Oil Countries, like Saudia Arabia, are SO-OOO Ethical according to you, that they wouldn't try to lobby for blockades to their only competition, even though it is totally legal and they stand to gain 10's of $Trillions in the process. I guess you never heard of Operation Ajax, where Big Oil bought politicians to arrange the overthrow of the elected government of Iran by the CIA, because they wanted to Nationalize their Oil assets there.
"...cover for weapons development. ...there is ALWAYS a proliferation risk since they were originally developed to make weapons. If we had abandoned nuclear power in the 70s like we should have, don't you think Iran would have a terrible time explaining their weapons program as a purely civilian activity..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...The belief that there is nuclear power leads to nuclear weapons is wrong. Countries get nuclear weapons firstly and directly.
USA bombs first. (Hiroshima, Nagasaki - pre nuclear power). 1957 first reactor
USSR bombs first. 1949 first bomb. first nuclear reactor June 27, 1954
United Kingdom first nuclear weapon 1952, first reactor 1956
France tested its first nuclear weapon in 1960, first reactor 1963
China first nuclear weapon in 1964, reactor 1991
India 1974, first reactor 1969 (exception to the bomb first)
Pakistan 1998, karachi 1972 (exception to the bomb first). they used
Pakistan achieved their nuclear weapon material with secret enrichment, centrifuges, not with material from the commercial program.
North Korea 2005 bomb, no commercial reactor
Israel late 1960s, bombs no commercial reactor..."
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/mark-jacobsons-distortions-on-energy.html
So 7 out of 9 countries developed bombs before commercial power. and the two that didn't, used non-commercial tech to develop bombs. You're ridiculous idea that not having a commercial program would've stopped Iran or India or Korea or Pakistan is beyond stupid. You still believe that the World bends over and submits to US policy. Like Carter claimed by stopping Nuclear Fuel reprocessing, as he did, that the rest of the World would do the same. Except they didn't. The rest of the World happily continued Nuclear Fuel reprocessing and could give a damn what Carter said or the USA did.
Strangely enough I am a big supporter of wind power but not a blind one. When claims are made that currently wind power is competitive on an dollar/watt produced basis those claims are only true when the wind is turning the windmills at the correct speed. Which is about a quarter of the time. So effectively you've spent as much money as a fossil fuel plant but only get 1/4 as much power. Which is why of course the Chinese are producing these to sell to the West while building coal plants for themselves. Still that extra wind power is useful as long as it is kept below the % level of the national usage that would require building backup fossil fuel plants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJames Davis,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDWB is referring to the NET increase in CO2 inherent in the developement, transport, and construction of wind turbines, and now, their batteries.
I'm sure if you had the intellectual capacity to understand all of the numbers, squiggly lines, and multisyllabic words in his post you might be induced to agree with him.
You could have also countered his argument that over time, the initial production of all that co2 is mitigated by the emissions free generation of power once the turbine is constructed and "online". But you called him an idiot, so I guess you win. Congrats.
By the way, A modern coal fired generation plant emits a tiny fraction of the kinds of particulates it did even fifteen years ago. In fact, the gases emanating from the smkokestacks you see in Al Gore's movie are emitting steam and CO2 and tiny TRACES of other chemicals.
There is no argument that I'm aware of that states that these trace chemicals are a problem any longer. The real issue, according to the green socialists, is CO2. And any slobbering, microcephalic IDIOT could tell you that CO2 is not a deadly gas. You should look into any mirror and ask one. It's remotely possible you'll understand him.
Trying to decipher your usual mindless rant it appears you are unable to do even the simplest research and arithmetic. Perhaps with help of a friend at home?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Pumped hydro is a fraction the cost of batteries."
Google "pumped hydro cost" and do some arithmetic to compare costs.
"It would cost a buck a kwh to add enough green storage to eliminate gas backup bankrupting the country."
Take the pump hydro cost above and figure how much a month of storage for the rare low/no wind climate event would cost. Ask your grade 3 teacher for help!!
"Most of the energy in the current wind/gas backup scam comes from burning the filthy gas in low efficiency fast spooling units. Far cheaper, far less GHG's to skip the wind and use high efficiency gas units."
Read Dwdb's post. It has all the info you need and you won't even have to learn to use Google.
These windmills are "manufactured" by GE in China.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe even the same part of China where the computer you used to post that comment was made.
dwbd calls the idea that lack of nuclear power would have prevented the development of bombs stupid. I agree, but that's not what sault suggested. He (or she) wrote that it would be much harder to disguise the bomb program, suggesting that it would force countries to use more covert methods and probably spend more resources because materials and expertise would be much less common without commercial nuclear power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour example of North Korea getting a bomb without nuclear power is misleading. That country has been trying to develop nuclear power since the 1950s.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_North_Korea
http://www.koreaherald.com/specialreport/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20090615000056
"I'm sure if you had the intellectual capacity to understand all of the numbers, squiggly lines, and multisyllabic words in his post you might be induced to agree with him."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I had the self-absorbed arrogance and thinly-disguised need to put others down that you clearly do, I might post personal attacks like yours. Instead, I spent some time looking at information that clearly debunks those carefully-selected numbers, squiggly lines and multisyllabic words.
Oh the pomposity!
I find myself in agreement as I am a big supporter of wind power, provided some reasonable consideration is made as to the contribution wind power is going to provide for any given site / power grid. As far as China goes, they don't have any master plan to fool the west into buying wind power. Their master plan is to simply sell everything and anything. As far as their own energy is concerned, they will do everything and anything too. They moved entire towns to make room for a hydro-electric dam, they've built wind farms, and they are just as willing to dig up an entire mountain range of coal if need be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...referring to the NET increase in CO2 inherent in the developement, transport..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo I'm not. That is an additional factor that could be added but I didn't. The observed effects in Holland, Ireland, Texas & Colorado, using actual Utility CO2 emissions data, are due to the effect of the fluctuating Wind Energy on the Fossil Fuel Power Source that MUST Shadow the Wind Power. The difference between Demand & Fluctuating Wind MUST be made up. The effect of those variations cause both lower efficiency fast cycling power sources to be used and also cause lower operating efficiency of the Shadowing Fossil Fuel power plants. The several studies I linked clearly establish those facts.
"...it would force countries to use more covert methods and probably spend more resources because materials and expertise..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo it wouldn't because Israel which had more reason than ANYONE to hide their Weapons program, didn't bother with commercial reactors, which they easily could have. And the latest effort to began a weapons program was Syria, and all they did was began to build a simple graphite pile reactor with North Korean & maybe Iranian help. It would be VASTLY more expensive to start a commercial Nuclear Power program to hide that, and how would a commercial reactor hide a graphite pile reactor. LWR's are terrible for making weapons materials and easily detectable.
All that silly talk is irrelevant, in any case, since it is quite simply a fact of life that tech has progressed to the point that ANY NATION STATE that wants Nuclear Weapons can indeed develop them, that part is a given, the effort must be to coerce or encourage them not to want to, and maybe in some cases preemptive action as has been done in Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Yea, it probably is a bunch of bull crap, but its very high quality bull crap. On the surface it almost makes sense, cause fossil fuel generators to consume more fuel because of less efficiency due to added variation caused by wind generators. I've seen similar types of reports before, designed to dazzle with lots of facts and figures and oh so careful calculations. But you know when you're in bull crap territory when they go so far over the top with the bling. When I read it I was half expecting the calculations on how much CO2 was released by maintenance guys driving to the wind farm, and what about the energy cost of the cell phone he was carrying. They make a lot of assumptions, tossing away a few small ones in their favor to make them seem fair minded, but keeping the big ones (like assuming constant).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce I get my sunglasses on, these things don't impress me one bit. Theorectical calcs are great for determining theorectical situations, but if you want to measure the efficiency of an existing system, skip the bling and measure it.
Maybe you should bother reading the studies instead of just assuming you know what they are all about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...how much CO2 was released by maintenance guys driving to the wind farm..."
The studies have nothing whatsoever to do with that. You are talking about full lifecycle CO2 emissions studies, useful but that's not what we are talking about here. The best analogy is how much fuel your car uses if you are driving at a nice steady 50 mph on a flat highway vs how much fuel it uses when you are when you are on a one lane highway with slowpokes you have to pass every mile and hills and stops every mile or two. So you are still averaging 50 mph, but you are constantly accelerating & decelerating. That's what Wind does to the Fossil Fuel power source that is shadowing it.
"...if you want to measure the efficiency of an existing system, skip the bling and measure it..."
that's exactly what they did in the Ireland, Texas, Colorado & Holland studies - read them.
Wow are you delusional:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/09/29/332378/economists-coal-is-incredibly-costly/
The 2 to 1 ratio of damages to value added for society means that coal is a financial nightmare. Go stick your mouth on the end of a coal power plant smokestack, take a few deep breaths and THEN tell me coal emissions BESIDES CO2 aren't a problem. Pricing in coal's contribution to the Climate Crisis makes it even MORE of a non-starter!
Pumping water to a higher elevation is impractical. You need a lot of water and a high reservoir to store energy. For example, the lithium ion battery of Tesla Roadster stores 53 kwhr of electricity. To store the same amount of energy, you have to pump 145,000 liters of water to the height of Hoover Dam (700 ft). That's almost four 20-footer containers full of water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's why you guys are mostly wrong; you think a clearly-biased BLOG is a reputable source. Who's checking "bravenewclimate" anyway?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're going to trust THOSE guys over legitimate science?
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Yep, not much different than the other one of dweeb's sources, <http://www.masterresource.org>, "a free-market energy BLOG, with your typical Cato Inst. principals.
The first principal listed is Robert L. Bradley, Jr., author of the 2,000-page book, 'Oil, Gas, and Government: The U.S. Experience' in 1996, a history of U.S. oil and natural gas regulation paid for by Cato. In 1985, Bradley joined HNG-InterNorth (soon to be renamed Enron) which provided Bradley with an education into energy deregulation and the resulting Western U.S. Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001, causing the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and near bankruptcy of Southern California Edison in early 2001.
In 1995, Bradley became director of public policy analysis at Enron, a corporate staff position. A primary job was preparing speeches for chairman and CEO Ken Lay, but Bradley also was involved in legislative and regulatory issues. It was here that he became very involved in the internal debate over global warming strategy and renewable energy. His criticism of climate alarmism and Enron's "political capitalism" is evidenced by memos posted on the website, <www.politicalcapitalism.org.>
Today, Bradley is CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research; an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.; and a visiting fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London.
Bradley’s most recent book is 'Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy,' which applies the capitalist worldview to corporate and energy controversies.
It's no wonder the dweeb likes free-market BLOGS like "master resource."
"That's why you guys are mostly wrong; you think a clearly-biased BLOG is a reputable source."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this----------------
Continuing on with the principals of the free-market energy BLOG 'MasterResource,' I see exactly where the far-right gets their convoluted ideology and one-sided energy policy that the U.S. has been following forever!
Alex Epstein: an alumnus of Duke University, where he studied philosophy and computer science. Prior to founding the Center for Industrial Progress, he was a Fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute specializing in energy issues.
Donald Hertzmark: an international energy specialist with more than 25 years of experience in oil and gas economics and analysis.
Marlo Lewis: a Senior Fellow in Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), where he writes on global warming, energy policy, and other public policy issues.
Michael C. Lynch: best known for his work in two areas: analyzing the forecasting of oil and gas markets, and studying the economics of petroleum supply.
Robert P. Murphy: an economist with IER specializing in climate change.
Jerry Taylor: under his direction, as a senior fellow, the Cato Institute has become an influential critic of federal and state environmental policy.
Roger Donway: a senior research fellow at the Institute for Energy Research (IER).
More from so many at the MasterResource BLOG, like the founder and CEO of IER, robert bradley:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Institute for Energy Research (IER), founded in 1989 from a predecessor non-profit organisation, advocates positions on environmental issues including deregulation of utilities, climate change denial, and claims that conventional energy sources are virtually limitless.
The IER's President was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron.
In August 2011, Robert Bradley, founder and CEO of the IER, spoke at the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana.
ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at <ALECexposed.org>
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Energy_Research
This is all a well-choreographed conservative energy policy, worshiping fossil fuels and attacking renewable energy, through ALEC, the koch heads and others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 2009 IER run a campaign on "green jobs" attacking the expansion of renewables energies. IER commissioned three studies on renewable energies and green jobs in Denmark, Germany and Spain. These studies by different think tanks were than promoted by IER and other free market think tanks in the US but also used in Europe. The study on Germany e.g. was translated into German and taken up by German media - without mentioning that the study was financed by IER with its close business links. The German institute that wrote the study (called Rheinisch-westfaelisches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung, RWI) didn't acknowledge the funding from IER until they were challendged by investigative journalists.
A report by the Europan NGO Corporate Europe Observatory tried to get more information on the funding of the libertarian Instituto Juan de Mariana responsible for the Spanish stuy and the Danish think tank CEPOS doing the study on wind energy in Denmark. The report states: "In their reply to CEO, Instituto Juan de Mariana affirmed that it finances all its activities through the individual donation of his over 250 individual members and that they did not receive corporate funding with the exception of a small Spanish insurance company. When contacted again to check whether the Institute for Energy Research (IER) support for the above study was financial, the Institute stopped responding."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Energy_Research
The Institute for Energy Research (IER), is a Houston, Texas-based company that conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe IER is also closely affiliated with the American Energy Alliance, founded in 2008 by Thomas Pyle, who previously lobbied on behalf of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association and Koch Industries and who previously worked for Congressman Tom Delay (R-TX), when Delay served as Whip and before Delay, as House Majority Leader, stepped down from the U.S. House of Representatives under an ethical cloud.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Energy_Alliance
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This is even more than the well-choreographed alliance I first imagined, and is a well-funded and highly-orchestrated fossil fuel misinformation entity that directs state and federal energy policy through ALEC.
I even imagine we have some plants here like "dweeb," that gets paid by IER, AEA or even the koch brothers to post all the negativity about renewable energy while supporting the fossil fuel/nuclear industries!
"Read Dwdb's post. It has all the info you need........"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-----
....from the usual sources like MasterResource, American Energy Alliance, Institute for Energy Research, American Legislative Exchange Council, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Koch Industries, Exxon/Mobil, etc...etc...etc....
Don't worry, they have ALL the info you'll ever need!
As usual you have nothing to say. Just ad hom attacks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour input is welcome at masterresource, bravenewclimate or the energy collective in the extremely unlikely event you have anything cogent to say.
Your sources like Greenpeace, Wtf, and Sierra all show extreme bias based on their massive support by Big Oil interests. Big Oil loves wind and solar as it sells more gas to the low efficiency backup plant than it would if the wind solar was skipped and only high efficiency CCGT plant was installed.
Sorry bubba, but my source was sourcewatch for all your conservative cato propaganda:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Energy_Research
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Energy_Alliance