Wind Power Is Cheaper Than Coal, Leaked Report Shows

[DEAD7]

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.

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Move along...nothing to see here :smugsterling:

 

[acri1]

Liberal propaganda.

 

[TLR Is Mental Poison]

NIMBY!!!!!!!!!!

 

[88m3]

Liberal propaganda.

yup

 

[Domingo Halliburton]

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.

I'm not disputing this but I'm interested in how they quantified this.

 

[DEAD7]

I'm not disputing this but I'm interested in how they quantified this.

Not sure myself, but I found more on it.


http://www.theguardian.com/environm...cheapest-energy-unpublished-eu-analysis-finds

The Guardian which examined a copy of the leaked report—it was completed for a study on energy costs for the European Commission, but was conspicuously omitted from the final draft—relays the findings: "for every megawatt hour (MW/h) of electricity generated, onshore wind costs roughly €105 (£83) [or $130 USD] per MW/h, compared to gas and coal which can cost up to around €164 [$208] and €233 [$295] per MW/h, respectively."
"Nuclear power, offshore wind and solar energy are all comparably inexpensive generators, at roughly €125 per MW/h," the report says.
The problem is, those higher healthcare and environmental costs, which economists call externalities, aren't paid for by the fossil fuel companies, but the public. As in you, the taxpayer. This makes them very difficult to address.

 

[mbewane]

"Classical" economy has the fundamental flaw that it does not take into account externalities, quite conveniently as negative externalities are more often than not paid for by the public sector.

This report will get buried, the new EU Commissioner for Energy, M. Cañete, has interests in oil companies.

 

[Brown_Pride]

love how it's omitted from the actual report...

 

[Yuzo]

i would be interested in understanding why wind would even cost anything. you have to physically extract coal out of the ground etc but the wind is just there so why the cost at all. the bulk of the cost of wind power is dedicated to what exactly?

similar question posed to solar

 

[DEAD7]

i would be interested in understanding why wind would even cost anything. you have to physically extract coal out of the ground etc but the wind is just there so why the cost at all. the bulk of the cost of wind power is dedicated to what exactly?

similar question posed to solar

The technology is costly I'm sure, and you have to pay for the land used... but I'm not sure how its more costly than coal either.
Its probably just politics.

 

[Yuzo]

The technology is costly I'm sure, and you have to pay for the land used... but I'm not sure how its more costly than coal either.
Its probably just politics.

so, land use? im really scratching my head on this one and thats about the only one thing i can think of here too. maintenance is the other one, but thats not a regularity and presumably a non issue for most of the time these things are out there running. running some solar on your own roof isnt costly, so why should a scenario like this be any different at a larger scale?

if the bulk of the cost is dominated by a land tax then this kind of energy needs to be turned over to the government does it not?

 

[ill]

i would be interested in understanding why wind would even cost anything. you have to physically extract coal out of the ground etc but the wind is just there so why the cost at all. the bulk of the cost of wind power is dedicated to what exactly?

similar question posed to solar

You still need to pay for the land rental, equipment (still new technology so its expensive relatively speaking), need to build a transformer to convert and transfer out all of that energy, need to hire people to maintain the operation.

The only way wind tech is cheaper than coal is due to environmental issues. They are counting health and environmental issues as added cost to coal

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.

 

[Yuzo]

You still need to pay for the land rental, equipment (still new technology so its expensive relatively speaking), need to build a transformer to convert and transfer out all of that energy, need to hire people to maintain the operation.

but this is hyperbole on your part. the only running cost you listed is maintenance. i dont know how much maintenance autonomously running wind turbines need to have, but i cant imagine they require much oversight. coal needs to actually be pulled out of the earth and transported by someone to a facility where someone needs to load it up into a furnace so it can be burned. the comparison of manpower seems orders of magnitude greater than wind which just naturally exists.

 

[ill]

but this is hyperbole on your part. the only running cost you listed is maintenance. i dont know how much maintenance autonomously running wind turbines need to have, but i cant imagine they require much oversight. coal needs to actually be pulled out of the earth and transported by someone to a facility where someone needs to load it up into a furnace so it can be burned. the comparison of manpower seems orders of magnitude greater than wind which just naturally exists.

In the future, you'll have a point. Right now, you don't. Coal infrastructure has been around for 100+ years. The mines are out of sight and out of mind.

Wind technology is relatively new for mainstream adoption. There are still patents on the technology, so you have to license it from whomever owns it. Then you need to find a location to put them. You need VAST amounts of land for effective wind energy production. You need to jump through hoops to establish a location. The one in my state took 5+ years to start. Environmentalists are NOT sold on the technology. They believe it will fukk up the ecosystem and that birds will die flying into the propellors. The regulatory barriers of entry for wind tech are huge. Its very hard to get it going anywhere.

Check out this article: http://www.aweo.org/problemwithwind.html

Wind is the future and much better than coal but right now its not economically feasible to take over.