A Mighty Wind

DoraLives writes "Fascinating New York Times piece regarding a proposed wind farm for Nantucket Sound. Suddenly, all the environmentally friendly locals are going ballistic over the prospects of seeing an 'industrial energy complex' in their backyard. Walter Cronkite decries it, as do many other local checkbook environmentalists. Greenpeace says 'Jim Gordon (the developer) is the real thing, there aren't many entrepreneurs out there willing to take risks to clean up the environment.' Who's right?"

Comments

I hate reruns....

[moehoward]

This is a REALLY old story.

Next?

financial downside much larger

[js7a]

The only downside to Nukes is a Chernobyl-like operating mess.

The heavily subsidized typical cost for U.S. nuclear power is around $0.12/kwh. That's with a blanket insurance policy courtesy of the Price-Anderson Act, and doesn't include the cost of waste disposal and other externalites like terrorism and natural disaster vulnerability, which can not be measured until it's too late.

The unsubsidized, fully amortized cost of wind power is about $0.04/kwh. Most jurisdictions also apply a subsidy to wind.

The entire United States of America can be converted to wind powered electricity using only 14,000 acres of turbine footprint area on existing farmland, pasture, and prarie. That's about twice the area of the Stanford University campus, or about as much oak forest lost in California each year.

There is no reason that wind should not be the major U.S. source of electricity in 2018.

Please tell Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Based on his Energy Committee testimony last week, nobody has explained this to him yet. Please phone +1.202.452.3204 and ask for Michelle Smith or Andrew Williams.