tomgray’s Recent Comments

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  Indeed. A friend told me recently, by the way, that when hydro was being developed in the Pacific Northwest, it was touted as "white coal." Wonder what wind would be called? "Clean coal?" Hmmm ... -- Tom Gray, American Wind Energy AssociationOn A scary photo for Halloween posted 1 week ago 1 Response

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  Dependent Wind, Part 2

  Stepping back for a moment, the truth is that to date, policy intervention of some sort has been needed wherever in the world wind power has developed.  I suspect the reason for this has less to do with its economics than the fact that it is variable (and new) and utilities, in general, have preferred to hope that it would just go away.  This attitude is changing--Xcel Energy is now a strong proponent of wind, and there are others--but it takes time.

  It's interesting to note that while changes to the utility system will be needed to accommodate large amounts of variable wind, similar changes were required with the advent of nuclear power ...

  Regards,
  Thomas O. Gray
  American Wind Energy Association
  www.powerofwind.org
  www.awea.org
  On Subsidies for wind power pale beside subsidies for nuclear posted 1 year, 5 months ago 23 Responses

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  Dependent Wind

  Some renewables (particularly wind) have been supported by production credits. (Call that a "pull" subsidy.) Is this working or is it just creating a dependent industry?

  Good question, but it begs the further question: what are we to make of the fact that 98% or so of federal energy subsidies today go to industries that one would think should be relatively mature (e.g., oil & gas)?  And why should wind unilaterally disarm?

  Regards,
  Thomas O. Gray
  American Wind Energy Association
  www.powerofwind.org
  www.awea.org
  On Subsidies for wind power pale beside subsidies for nuclear posted 1 year, 5 months ago 23 Responses

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  All That Electricity

  The point is that nuclear energy is actually producing a lot of electricity for all those incentives. The U.S. is not getting the same returns from wind and solar.

  As another commenter notes, this is disingenuous.  While wind enjoyed a brief but very small boom in the early 1980s, its steady growth did not begin until late 1998--we're comparing wind after one decade with nuclear after five.  My guess would be that in 1970, the per-kilowatt-hour returns on nuclear subsidies would have looked pretty puny too.

  The American Wind Energy Association has prepared a more detailed response to the EIA report.

  Regards,
  Thomas O. Gray
  American Wind Energy Association
  www.powerofwind.org
  www.awea.org
  On Subsidies for wind power pale beside subsidies for nuclear posted 1 year, 5 months ago 23 Responses

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  Energy storage

  No, this is incorrect.  The report does not envision new storage, but does acknowledge that 70 GW of gas-fired combustion turbines will be needed to accommodate wind's variability.  These would be run sparingly, however.

  Regards,
  Thomas O. Gray
  American Wind Energy Association
  www.powerofwind.org
  www.awea.orgOn U.S. could get 20 percent of energy from wind by 2030, says DOE posted 1 year, 5 months ago 4 Responses