The New York Times reports today about some possible corruption in the race to introduce wind power in rural communities in upstate New York:
Lured by state subsidies and buoyed by high oil prices, the wind industry has arrived in force in upstate New York, promising to bring jobs, tax revenue and cutting-edge energy to the long-struggling region. But in town after town, some residents say, the companies have delivered something else: an epidemic of corruption and intimidation, as they rush to acquire enough land to make the wind farms a reality.
“It really is renewable energy gone wrong,” said the Franklin County district attorney, Derek P. Champagne, who began a criminal inquiry into the Burke Town Board last spring and was quickly inundated with complaints from all over the state about the wind companies. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo agreed this year to take over the investigation.
“It’s a modern-day gold rush,” Mr. Champagne said.
Mr. Cuomo is investigating whether wind companies improperly influenced local officials to get permission to build wind towers, as well as whether different companies colluded to divide up territory and avoid bidding against one another for the same land.
There is no excuse for the corrupt business practices, but overall I think of the article as a hopeful sign. The rest of the article goes on to describe the economic challenges facing this rural area. What do rural landowners typically do when the farming economy withers? It's a good thing to have other opportunities. It would be much better if the legal structures protected them in their dealings with the wind power companies.
The real cost of wind
There is one important fact about wind. It isn't always blowing in upstate New York or, for that matter, most everywhere else. All regulators need to ask, who will pay when electric generating capacity must be supplied in some other form? Once intermittency is recognized as a true element of the real cost of this form of electric supply, and customers are charged accordingly, it can become a valid if very expensive part of the supply mix. It would almost never be appropriate for a small or medium size municipal supplier, since my understanding is that the typical wind farm has an intermittency factor on the order of 30%.
If you wake up to discover some well-meaning greens have loaded up your local utlity with wind contracts, (as opposed to linked a large number of profitable wind farms into a large grid) better get ready to pay a lot more.
I'm not sure I understand
1. Put up a windmill. (expensive, must be depreciated).
2. Send energy to grid when wind blows. (very cheap compared to burning any known fuel, but depreciation in #1 could force price to be too high).
3.Utility uses all sources in order of expense whether wind is blowing or not.
How are we any worse off? If wind power is the last source before brownout, it's still better than nothing; if it's better than, say, jet-fuel powered mini-plants, or oil, or coal, then we're much better off.
And if the government in its wisdom decides to subsidize the construction of the towers to offset our dependence on foreign oil...or tax foreign oil to build in the externalities...all the better.
Why wind is not the answer
Windmills do nothing to offset foreign oil. Almost none of our electricity is produced from foreign oil.
The problem with your way of thinking is that electricity demand is more or less constant. It varies by time of day and by season, but neither factor correlate with when it is windy. While wind is certainly better than nothing, and in the right place is really good, it just isn't going to be adequate to offset even a tiny fraction of US electricity production. As you probably know, wind now accounts for less than a half of one percent, and even with maximum regulatory prods, it will never account for more than about 7 percent, just because of where the wind resource is located.
We're worse off because we have to pay twice: once to amortize the wind turbine and again to amorize the jet-fuel miniplant or whatever is used to meet the demand when the wind is not available.
impact
Regarding windmills, it would be interesting to know more about the impact on birds and noise.
Correct, wind alone isn't the answer
Wind has low carbon footprint, so it's good, but because it isn't always windy during peak usage periods (as noted in other posts) there must be a backup (nuclear is good, as it also has zero CO2 output).
So, wind-solar-nuclear works for a lower climate warming impact.
We also need to make buildings more energy efficient. I've seen some LEED certified buildings that are very impressive -- one I saw a couple weeks back uses less than half the energy of conventional buildings the same size.
http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CategoryID=19
We're going to need a multi-pronged approach to saving energy, reducing dependence on foreign oil, reducing environmental impact of too many people (over 6 billion of us) on the planet.
"wind-solar-nuclear works
"wind-solar-nuclear works for a lower climate warming impact."
Nuclear requires a continuous base load to operate. You can not quickly or easily change the output power of a nuclear reactor (one of the problems that lead to Chernobyl, in addition to its dangerous design).
Any rapidly-shifting energy like wind would need to be backed by a more throttleable source like hydro, coal, or natural gas.
Solar has some interesting peak production during peak cooling time issues, but mainly in the summer time. Wind is highly variable, especially on mountaintops rather than offshore or mountain pass wind.
Wind energy can be stored
In Europe wind energy is much more widespread than in the US and there they actually store the electricity from wind turbines.
In Sweden and Norway they have water reservoirs that fill up during summer due to ice and snow melting in the mountainous regions. The water then drives turbines for electricity. Interestingly, at other times of year they pump water up into the reservoirs using wind generated electricity that is available on the grid, sometimes at low MW-prices. When the power is needed it is easy to open the valves and generate electricity from the stored water.
Another way to store the energy is being explored: Hydrogen. If the surplus electricity were used to create H2 from water then the energy could be stored and used either in a fuel cell or in a hybrid car. The latter is interesting because it moves wind generated energy into the automotive world and thus breaks another (imagined) barrier between renewable energy and the needs of the 21. century.
In other words: Think out of the box. The current grid and energy network is the product of decades, even centuries, of developement. Now everything has changed and it is time to develope a new infrastructure based on something other than the oil industry's needs. There is another way out there. I suggest we follow it.
Best
John