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Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic

By | November 24, 2010, 4:00 AM PST

Offshore wind turbines may soon sprout more quickly on the Outer Continental Shelf off the East Coast. And this doesn’t count Cape Wind’s 130 turbines slated for Nantucket Sound within the next two years.

Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a program yesterday that would streamline the permit process for offshore farms in order to encourage investments.

Salazar in a statement:

The Cape Wind lease is an historic milestone in America’s renewable energy future, but to fully harness the economic and energy benefits of our nation’s vast Atlantic wind potential we need to implement a smart permitting process that is efficient, thorough, and unburdened by needless red tape.

After all, Cape Wind’s approval path, which was fraught with legal battles, spanned almost a decade. On Monday, Massachusetts accepted the farm’s first power purchase agreement with National Grid. For 15 years, the utility will buy half of the electricity generated by the farm at $187 per megawatt-hour. The company will now seek financing to start building.

Within two months, the ‘Smart from the Start’ initiative will identify prime ocean turbine real estate off 6 states—Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. (Evaluations for New York and other states will follow.) According to the government, the “Wind Energy Areas” could potentially generate 10.3 gigawatts of wind power. Importantly, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (formerly MMS) also plans to fast-track plans for transmission lines in order to bring this influx of electricity ashore.

Within six months, several government agencies will help assess the locations, determining whether the facilities would interfere with shipping routes, right whale migrations, or training areas for the Navy. But the chosen WEAs are supposed to a smaller chance of encountering such issues that would delay getting leases through and construction started.

Regarding simplifying lease sales, BOEMRE proposes allowing sales to go through with only one interested developer, without verifying there is no competitive interest. This would cut down the leasing process, they say, by six months to a year.

Related on SmartPlanet:

Image: Cape Wind

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Melissa Mahony

About Melissa Mahony

Melissa Mahony was a contributing editor for SmartPlanet from 2010 to 2011.

Melissa Mahony

Melissa Mahony

Contributing Editor

Melissa Mahony has written for Scientific American Mind, Audubon Magazine, Plenty Magazine and LiveScience. Formerly, she was an editor at Wildlife Conservation magazine. She holds degrees from Boston College and New York University's Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. She is based in New York.

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Melissa Mahony

Melissa Mahony

Melissa does not have financial holdings that would influence how or what she covers. She currently works for the Wildlife Conservation Society as an editor. Should Melissa cover a topic in which the WCS is involved, she will disclose this fact in her writing.

She writes for SmartPlanet and is not an employee of CBS.

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+1 Vote
+ -
Not worth the cost.
The day it starts producing electricity Cape wind power will cost nearly 10 cents per kilowatt more than the average power station output in New England.

Residential rates are expected to nearly double as the cost is passed on to consumers.

The no bid contract signed by the Cape Wind with National Grid and approved by the State Department of Utilities guarantees Cape Wind rate increases of 3.5 percent annually for 15 years.

Do the math. This spike in energy costs will kill the budget of the average household in Massachusetts and drive businesses out of a state because the cost of doing business will become prohibitive.

If you throw the Obama administrations planned cap and trade energy taxes into this mix you have a recipe for economic disaster brewing in Massachusetts.

This is exactly what happened in Spain when they went green. Now they have 20 percent unemployment while the rest of the EU averages only 10 percent.
Posted by Hates Idiots
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
So... it's taken 10 years to secure the land use.. and now they're willing to shave 6 months off the timeline by excluding possible interested competition? What happened to free market?
Posted by tnice
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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Do not forget..
The taxpayers of Massachusetts are also funding part of the Cape Wind project construction and the seabed the turbines with sit on is being given to them. Free. Courtesy of the US taxpayer.
Posted by Hates Idiots
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
I will criticize the subsidies and tax breaks that alternative energy providers get when the oil, coal and nuclear industry pays back the largess provided to them over the last 150 years.
Posted by kevins198
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
The US could save billions in energy costs right now with their waste. Los Angeles alone spends over 100 million dollars on energy costs responding to the symptoms of urban heat islands without addressing the cause. Buildings are supposed to reflect solar radiation or they get radiated and generate extrme heat they aren't designed for. In the winter solar radiation is still radiating buildings if the paints or finishes are right.

Yesterday it was 10 degrees F here and we documented building exteriors up to 132 degrees F without emissions produced. Here is a link to basic infrared imaging showing the radiation effect. http://www.thermoguy.com/urbanheat.html

Politicians have to be very careful trying to create economy for votes. Notice the weather extremes out there? Climate change is the result of warming the atmosphere and buildings 122 degrees F warmer the the weather station is reporting is heating the atmosphere and climate will change. That will have a domino effect that will cause many problems.
Posted by Thermoguy
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
So..
Allowing a new taxpayer rip off to occur because an old one is allowed to continue is smart how?

I have not voted for an incumbent in over 30 years because none of them have the integrity to address these issues.

Have you done the same kevins198?
Posted by Hates Idiots
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
They shave off 6 months to a year in contract awards and add back 1 year to 5 years of lawsuits for violating state law on contracts - plus the normal enviormental and NIMBY suits. Historically everything 3 miles plus out is under Federal control and the states actually have no say in it so it could be all Federal, but the Federal has allowed states to assume rights up to 200 miles offshore so there is never going to be anything fast about wind power over water.
The traditional 3 and 12 mile limits were created based on the range of guns on ships - defining international waters.
Posted by TAPhilo
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
#4 you are right on!!
Posted by jackvandijk
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
Mr Hate. Keep in mind the oil, gas, nuclear, farm and coal industries are still getting enormous taxpayer funded largess. So until the playing field has leveled I will hold the same position.

There is no way I am going vote for an uneducated idiot over a reasonable incumbent. So no I do not always vote for the new guy on the block.
Posted by kevins198
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
4. Kevins198 11/24/10

"I will criticize the subsidies and tax breaks that alternative energy providers get when the oil, coal and nuclear industry pays back the largess provided to them over the last 150 years."

Kevins are you completely mad? Can you not add up? The 10cents per kWh cost of conventional electricity is HALF the price to you as a consumer will have to pay for wind farm electricity costs if these co freaks get their way. Don't let your ideological prejudices blind you to that reality.
Posted by cosserat@...
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
5. Thermoguy 11/24/10

"The US could save billions in energy costs right now with their waste. Los Angeles alone spends over 100 million dollars on energy costs responding to the symptoms of urban heat islands without addressing the cause. ... Yesterday it was 10 degrees F here and we documented building exteriors up to 132 degrees F without emissions produced...Climate change is the result of warming the atmosphere and buildings 122 degrees F warmer than the weather station is reporting are heating the atmosphere and climate will change. That will have a domino effect that will cause many problems."

I am sorry Thermoguy but that's just twaddle. The energy put out by thermally leaky buildings (whilst I agree representing a wasteful economic cost to the owners) isn't on a scale to affect the warming of the planet by several orders of magnitude! Selling infrared cameras that show pictures rendered in red hues and therefore seem to look 'hot' might fool the gullible or ignorant but what you are doing is very close to legal misrepresentation.
Posted by cosserat@...
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
Cosserat I am willing to pay more for alternative energy. This is a national security issue. How many more countries do we have to invade to keep our supply of oil. The true cost of oil and coal is probably an order of magnitude more than the actual cost at the pump or in the electricity bill. Until people start realizing that we have a huge national security hole. Not to mention the costs that will be associated with global warming.
Posted by kevins198
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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A reasonable incumbent?
What reasonable incumbent would perpetuate the scams you are angry about kevin198?

I also do not vote for idiots. In most elections a reasonable person can be found on the ballot that is not an incumbent. You have to vote for them in the primary elections.

An option most most people choose to ignore when you see registered voter turnouts in the 10 percent range for primarys.
Or, heaven forbid, a reasonable person may not be in a party you have been brainwashed into hating for ideological reasons.

But they are reasonable and educated people. That is why I vote for the person. Not the party.

Bottom line. If the person already in office perpetuates the scams you are mad about, they do not deserve your vote for reelection.

It is ok to get mad at the industry for taking the money. In fact I encourage it, but you should also be mad as hell at the people giving out your tax money like candy on Halloween.

Very few people take this step because their political ideology tells them not to punish politicians in their party.

It is called accountability and the elected officials in the US government from any political party need a strong dose of it.
Posted by Hates Idiots
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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Correction Cosserat.
Thermoguy is talking about the heat sink effect of the buildings themselves. Not heat leaking from the buildings.

Many of the warmer temperature readings in the US over the past 20 years pointed to by the global warming crowd are caused by poorly situated remote temperature stations that have been installed on buildings or near roadways for convienent installation and/or mantenance reasons.

The heat sink of all that cement or pavement soaks up heat from the sun during the day and alters the temperature readings compared to 30 years ago when manual readings were taken under strictly controlled circumstances that prevented heat sink effects from tainting readings.
Posted by Hates Idiots
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
Amazing to see such hostility to government subsidy for wind and solar energy development. Where is your outrage at the subsidies paid to coal, oil, and nuclear development? Where is your outrage about waiving environmental restrictions (e.g. clean water regs) for natural gas fracking? I guess lighting your tap water on fire is the price you are willing to pay to maintain status quo and avoid the dreaded 'green' industry.
Posted by josmyth
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
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RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
Cosserat, Hate,
You are comparing apples and oranges when you compare conventional electricity rates against new electrical generation. It's like comparing the price of a Hybrid SUV with a 57 Chevy and complaining that the Hybrid is so friggin expensive compared to that good 'ole Chevy.

Let's look at what the Energy Information Agency just put out for fixed Operation and Maintenance costs for various sources for NEW electricity (all in dollars/kwh):

Coal
Advanced pollution controls: $35.87
with carbon sequestration: 76.62

Natural Gas
Advanced controls: 14.62
with carbon seques. 30.25

Nuclear: 88.75

Wind
Onshore: 28.07
Offshore: 53.33

Solar
Solar thermal: 64.00
Small PV: 26.04
Large PV: 16.70

Hydro
Standard: 13.44
Pumped: 13.03

In other words, you can't go out and buy that Old 57 Chevy for a thousand bucks anywhere, and if you find it somewhere, chances are someone has spiffed it up and is asking a pretty penny for it anyway. All of your choices are going to be expensive, so get used to it, and if you think you can pay for the less outrageously expensive conventional coal plant with advanced pollution control but without carbon sequestration, then you are looking at a few decades of delays and probably excalating costs that will put it right up there with the coal + CCS price per kwh anyway.
Posted by klassman6
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
2. Caroline Webb 11/24/10 says: "Please put a reference for the claim about wind power capacity outstripping coal power capacity. And furthermore, it is not possible to equate the two, is it? Talking about a capacity that only works for less than 50% of the time is not the same as talking about capacity that is working 95% or more of the time."

Caroline, there are several mistakes in the report not just one. The one you pick up about wind power load factor (the average proportion of the time that the wind blows) is very, very pertinent. By the way, even in windy offshore places this is generously estimated at 33%, not 50% as you suggest.

However the main howler in the report is the nonsense phrase: "In 2008 and for the first time new wind turbine power generation capacity topped new coal-fired capacity in the U.S."

You are right to ask the journalist for a source for this information but my point is that even if it turns out to be technically true in some contorted sense of the word ?new?, it is still meaningless. The amount of new coal capacity installed versus the amount of new wind power capacity installed tells us absolutely nothing at all. It simply reflects public funding policy (essentially pro-wind and anti-coal) over the past few years.

However the claim as written is very dangerous: a casual reading of the sentence could easily leave the reader with the nice warm feeling that in some sense wind capacity has now (at last, phew!) overtaken coal capacity ? a milestone long wished-for by the eco-enthusiasts.

This is all nonsense of course. Total installed US wind capacity is around 35GW. Only a proportion of that is offshore but, even at a generous average load factor of 33%, that would mean around 10GW of deliveredelectric power . This is a minor contribution (15%) compared with the total delivered electric power from coal capacity which in the US is around 227GW (and that minor contribution has been achieved only with a gigantic infusion of taxpayers? money). And if, as we should, we compare wind power with all conventional generating resources in the US (not just coal), that percentage contribution from wind power falls to a negligible 7%.

Even that calculation does not take into account the fact that wind power, because it is unpredictably variable, has to be backed by expensive standby conventional generating equipment, further increasing its effective cost. And finally there is also the little matter that the windy areas are mostly far from the grid necessitating huge additional investment in power transmission facilities plus additional losses in transmission.

Taking all such considerations into account, wind power is at least a factor of 3 more expensive than coal. It is nowhere near becoming cost efficient with coal despite 30 years of development. But of course eco-enthusiasts don?t care about our electricity bills being tripled or more because they think they are saving the planet ? even though US emissions will be dwarfed by the rest of the world, particularly China, who are definitely not participating in this eco-scam.

Even that calculation does not take into account the fact that wind power, because it is unpredictably variable, has to be backed by expensive standby conventional generating equipment, further increasing its effective cost. And finally there is also the little matter that the windy areas are mostly far from the grid necessitating huge additional investment in power transmission facilities plus additional losses in transmission.

Taking all such considerations into account, wind power is at least a factor of 3 more expensive than coal. It is nowhere near becoming cost efficient with coal despite 30 years of development. But of course eco-enthusiasts don?t care about our electricity bills being tripled or more because they think they are saving the planet ? even though US emissions will be dwarfed by the rest of the world, particularly China, who are definitely not participating in this eco-scam.
Posted by cosserat@...
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
14. Hates Idiots 11/24/10 said: "Correction Cosserat. Thermoguy is talking about the heat sink effect of the buildings themselves. Not heat leaking from the buildings."

Well you could have fooled me. But it is so badly expressed that it is difficult to say one way or the other. For example, what is one to make of a daft statement like: "Yesterday it was 10 degrees F here and we documented building exteriors up to 132 degrees F without emissions produced"?

The urban heat island effect that results from badly sited weather stations has indeed distorted the world average temperature record and climate skeptics do claim this has led to unnecessary alarmism over global warming. Whether or not that is true is, I agree, an entirely different issue.

Perhaps Themoguy will elucidate more clearly which exactly what point he was making.
Posted by cosserat@...
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
Look big picture josmyth...
I have been railing against any government subsidies for any private industry since I first voted in the 1970s. Free market. Sink or swim.

It has nothing to do with solar or wind energy. I just do not want to see them start feeding at the taxpayer trough when I already am trying to kick others away from it.

That target list includes price supports and subsidies for corn, milk, soybeans, cotton and a host of other products in addition to the energy sector.

Not only are we paying the industry subsidies for these items with our tax dollars, but also in many cases we are paying higher retail prices as well because of the manipulated markets.

As Cape Wind will do with electricity in Massachusetts.
Posted by Hates Idiots
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
I too am getting sick and tired of subsidies to everyone. The government has no business taking money from any person and giving it away to another person or corporation. If you think wind power is great put up your own. Honeywell makes a unit that can go just about anywhere, same with PV or solar hot water. Just don't ask me to pay for it.
PS: I do have solar hot water panels so that I can shut down my wood/oil boiler for 4 or 5 months a year.
Posted by philwhite42@...
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
12. kevins198 11/24/10 said: "The true cost of oil and coal is probably an order of magnitude more than the actual cost at the pump or in the electricity bill."

Actually, kevins, in the case of oil the true cost at the pump is much less than the actual cost, not much more. Gasoline is taxed by the government, remember? And coal is inherently cheap.

Concerning the point about earlier energy technologies being subsidised by governments, yes oil, coal and nuclear have all been subsidised in the past. So what? They have been subsidised for all sorts of political reasons to achieve what governments thought they had a duty to achieve - a measure of energy independence or at least a reduction of risk to supply. On ocasions they may have been wrong to do so and on other occasions they may have been right. That's life.

The reason people like me complain about the subsidies now being diverted to alternative energy technologies is quite different. It is to do with the utter baselessness of the underlying technological and financial assumptions. If you want to become independent of Middle East oil and you want to avoid CO2 omissions, the logical choice is nuclear - not wind power, not useless only available ethanol. Despite all the eco-twaddle to the contrary, nuclear is safest and it works. The sources of fuel are politically stable and (unlike wind power for example) it works all the time - that is 24x7, 365 days per year. Its footprint on the geography of the Earth (per megawatt of output) is absolutely miniscule compared with wind farms and ethanol crop farms, both of which are rapidly becoming an ecological and environmental nightmare and, in the latter case, are causing malnutrition as resources are diverted away from manufacturing food for poor people.

What makes me angry is that people who are particularly keen on saving the Earth (but aren't we all?) can't seem to see sense when it comes to down-to-earth engineering realities and real numbers.

And to be honest, journalistic enterprises like Smartplanet aren't helping right now. Let's hope these blog comments encourage the journalists to be more responsible.
Posted by cosserat@...
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
16. klassman6 11/24/10 says (summarising):

"Coal $36 + $77 for carbon sequestration
Natural Gas $15 + $30 for carbon seuestration
Nuclear: $89
Wind Onshore: $28
Wind Offshore: $53
Solar thermal: $64
Solar small PV: $26
Solar large PV: $17
Hydro standard: $13
Hydro pumped: $13"

Even assuming these numbers are remotely correct:

1. Hydro is a non-starter. You simply cannot go on inventing more mountain lakes.

2. Solar thermal and solar PV is a great idea in sunny climates - useless elsewhere. And transmitting electricty from Mexico to Alaska would not be cost effective.

3. Wind is hopeless as a major contributor because of the 'load factor' problem discussed elsewhere in this blog trail.

4. If you feel you must sequestrate CO2 to save the planet, coal and natural gas are completely out on cost grounds.

So that just leaves nuclear power as the major electricity provider, doesn't it?
Posted by cosserat@...
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
Hey, Geniuses,

what happens on the occasional calm day when ALL 10.3 GIGAWATS disappear??? Where does the power come to replace the non-existant wind energy???

Even when the wind is blowing it is so variable that the grid operators have problems balancing the power. They have to keep gas turbines idling at highly inefficient burn rates to be ready to provide the power that disappears with every lull in the wind!!!

Nuclear plants could be operated at less than maximum, IF WE HAD THEM, to back up the wind.

The claimed savings in CO2 and other emissions are pure BS as is the idea that wind power is free!!!!

I would prefer emitting MORE CO2 to feed the worlds biosphere anyway!!!
Posted by KuhnKat
24th Nov 2010
-1 Votes
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
Only have two questions to ask:

Have the 5, 10 and 20 year cost assessments for production of electricity from these new sources been done and disclosed?

Are they competitive with both the cost of new electricity from increased hydro and increased nuclear facility creation, including maintenance required for continued service for 30+ years?

And if the answer to either of these questions is NO, will someone stop BEFORE we stimulus the American tax payers into even deeper debt?

Sure hope this isn't another "technology" like grain ethanol, whose time has not yet come because we do not yet know how to do it in a cost effective way!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by daves1646
24th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
My comments below are based on the assumption that folks are actually interested in discussing, not attacking. I hope I'm right.

Hate: Data keeps pouring in and will continue to support the fact that greenhouse gases are tipping the complex atmospheric dynamics toward a warmer planet. No argument about skewed data collection points, statistical fudging, sun cycles, political/economic agendas etc. have held up upon further scientific scrutiny, and those who hang onto these arguments will only find themselves in more and more untenable positions as the trends become more and more clear. The physics of the effects of massive emissions of GHG into the atmosphere by human activities is clear and predictable. Policymakers and political leaders are going to be more and more uncomfortable aligning themselves with conspiracy theorists and denialists unless they can prove the physics to be incorrect, which they can't.

-Not one nuclear power plant would even exist without massive, and I mean massive federal subsidies, exemptions and the like. Even now, the economics has made nuclear power an extremely shaky investment as is evidenced by the EIA operating and maintenance numbers I posted above, showing nukes to be the most expensive alternative out there. The only way the feds could shove ahead the planned Georgia nukes is to guarantee billions of dollars of loan guarantees to the corporations building the nuke to be paid even if not one kilowatt was produced out of those plants. Missouri voters wisely told their utility that they could not charge for a nuke through their rates even before the ground was broken in order to raise money for the project, and the project was scrubbed.

KuhnKat,
What if the wind stops? Fortunately, the wind doesn't ever stop everywhere. Studies show that a grid of wind generation farms show enough stability that the current grid system, which switches sources all of the time, will be able to handle the issue quite nicely and as the percentage of wind generation grows, the grid will be able to keep up with that growth. Furthermore, if you use stored hydro or combine with solar, you improve your stability even more. Not an issue at all.

And as far as producing more CO2 for the biosphere, the resulting increase in acidification of the oceans will greatly harm the ocean's primary production, and increasing desertification and deforestation will decrease primary production on the land. How do we know? It's already happening.

Crosserat:
Your points:
1. Hydro is a non-starter. You simply cannot go on inventing more mountain lakes.

Actually that's what pumped hydropower is all about: using wind to pump water behind containment dams to store energy and use that stored energy when the wind dies down. Low head hydro is also very much underutilized and could provide much more local power use with minimal environmental consequences, especially in areas like New England, the Appalachians, etc.

2. Solar thermal and solar PV is a great idea in sunny climates - useless elsewhere. And transmitting electricty from Mexico to Alaska would not be cost effective.

Germany is very much a like the Pacific northwest: lots of cloudy days, and yet it is the world leader. Shows you what the potential is and that your concern is one not to worry about, no? Furthermore, all homes have rooftops, potential PV sites, and it does not require massive electrical transmission over long distances, with the attendant high costs and loss of transmission over distances.

3. Wind is hopeless as a major contributor because of the 'load factor' problem discussed elsewhere in this blog trail.

I'm not sure why you are making such a big deal about why new installed generation is a very small percentage of overall generation, and that wind is still a relatively small percentage of overall generation. Nobody else seems to be misunderstanding this. All of the projections I've seen and that are bandied about talk about how the goal is to have 20 percent of production by renewables by 2020. This seems very attainable; in fact some states such as Iowa have already attained this and are setting their goals higher. The overall strategy is
1. Don't build any new fossil fuel electric power plants
2. Keep new electrical demand to a minimum by getting serious with energy efficiency programs so that you can do much more with what you are already producing. This happens to be the most cost effective investment that people and utilities can make, by the way, when compared with a new power plant.
3. When retiring old power plants, and instead of spending billions in retrofitting them, replace them with renewables.

So far this strategy is working and with the savings from energy efficiency, even will go a long ways toward paying for itself. This should be of interest with those who don't like subsidies.

4. If you feel you must sequestrate CO2 to save the planet, coal and natural gas are completely out on cost grounds.
Agreed.

So that just leaves nuclear power as the major electricity provider, doesn't it?

Far from it. See my comments to Hate above. There is much more I could say on this, but I've already gone on too long.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Posted by klassman6
25th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
daves1646 cost question.
Cape Wind would start out selling wholesale power at almost double the rate per kw compared to the current industry average in New England.

The contract the state allowed Cape wind to get has built in rate increases of 3.5 percent annually for 15 years. So the cost comparison with other energy sources should be easy.

Since the nations annual inflation rate started being tracked in 1913 the long term average has been 3.43 percent. Their rates should at least keep pace with inflation over the long term.

Most inflation predictions for 2011 were for under 3 percent inflation before QE2 began. Now all bets are off with the fed printing $600 billion out of thin air over the next 6 month.

klass.. A report just released out of the UK says global cooling will continue this winter with Europe and the US seeing colder than normal winters and heavier snow falls this winter. Just like last year. Interesting reading.
Posted by Hates Idiots
26th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
Well said cosserat@...
- - people who are particularly keen on saving the Earth (but aren't we all?) can't seem to see sense when it comes to down-to-earth engineering realities and real numbers. - -

Lets face it guys, some people have great ideas that work in the controlled environment of a lab or classroom, but they do not work as well when put in the real world.
Posted by Hates Idiots
26th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Offshore wind hits fast lane in the Atlantic
Hate,
You must be referring to the latest oscillation of ENSO, otherwise known as La Nina, which, the downward part of the cycle, the upper part of which is El Nino. And yes, it probably will result in decreased temps in Northern Europe and northern US, but at the same time will probably cause drier, warmer temps in the southern and central portions of the US, a drier Pacific, and increased precip. in Indonesia.

In contrast, check out the truly global trends, which, incidentally, is showing 2010 to be the hottest year on record yet:

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101015_globalstats.html
Posted by klassman6
27th Nov 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
Re: printing of comments
I would love to have an easy way to print the comments...on your print icon, perhaps we can have a selection of whether to print the comments or not...(luckily I use a print program which can print 2 up, remove graphics and delete unwanted pages....

ps, I submitted some comments, but I got sent to a web page that said I had to have some text to submit...I had written quite a long comment...would like to know what happened to it. (Next time I'll know to save the text before submitting.)
Posted by jgs25
28th Nov 2010
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