Wind Power Is Cheaper Than Coal, Leaked Report Shows

merbs writes: A leaked report shows wind is the cheapest energy source in Europe, beating the presumably dirt-cheap coal and gas by a mile. Conventional wisdom holds that clean energy is more expensive than its fossil-fueled counterparts. Yet cost comparisons show that renewable energy sources are often cheaper than their carbon-heavy competition. The report (PDF) demonstrates that if you were to take into account mining, pollution, and adverse health impacts of coal and gas, wind power would be the cheapest source of energy.

Comments

Re:Too bad...

[umafuckit]

Whilst I agree with you in principle, "half a billion years" is not a unit of mass and most plants and trees that have existed didn't turn into coal. I'm not being pedantic, the way your post is written emotively implies that a substantial proportion of all the plant biomass that has existed was locked up as coal. This isn't true. The fossil fuel carbon pool is only about twice the size of the terrestrial biosphere, which re-circulates comparatively quickly. Thus, the carbon from most ancient plants got recirculated and didn't get locked up as coal. In fact, both fossil fuel and biosphere carbon pools are dwarfed in size by the carbon pool present in limestone (so fossilised marine organisms), there's also a vast store in the oceans. Look up the carbon cycle on the Wikipedia.