Skip to main content

Futurepundit on Wind Energy

Over at Futurepundit earlier this week, Randall Parker engaged in a detailed discussion of wind energy and its drawbacks:
I like scenic vistas. I don't understand why environmental groups are willing to support wind power. Would they rather ruin scenic vistas than build nuclear power plants? I guess so. They even want to use taxpayers money and higher electric prices to subsidize the ruin of scenery. How about you? do you mind seeing wind towers 20 miles off on mountain tops or coast lines? I can see putting them 30 miles offshore beyond view of most people.
As we mentioned on Wednesday, nuclear has a much smaller footprint than wind, due in part to its tremendous advantage in operational efficiency.

Now does that mean we should stop investing in wind power? No, not at all. Wind is a promising technology that someday may provide more electrical energy than the small fraction that it does today. But when it comes to meeting near-term demand for electricity in the next 25 years, nuclear needs to be part of the solution.

Technorati tags: , , , , ,

Comments

Rod Adams said…
Eric:

Couple of comments about wind:

1. Humans have been capturing and using wind energy for thousands of years. Hundreds of thousands of very intelligent and dedicated engineers, businessmen, and government leaders have chosen to use more reliable and controllable energy sources.

2. Last week I was in southern Wales and saw a wind installation with a rather jarring effect on the vista. I had been noticing just how many power lines there were in the area with tall towers, when I saw about a dozen wind turbines that were each nearly 2 times taller than the high voltage towers. They were probably 10-20 miles away, but they were clearly the largest structures around.

3. Some people might never go to sea, but there is a lot of activity out there that would be significantly affected by off shore wind installations. Shipping lanes will probably be avoided because of strong pressure from the companies using them, but small boaters and fishermen do not need thousands of new, giant navigation obstructions. Sailors - like me - need to tell people that off shore wind is not unencumbered, we use it already and will fight to keep it available.

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should