Wind Energy Economics

The cost of wind, the price of wind, the value of wind

by Jerome a Paris

If you wonder at all about the economics of wind turbine electricity generation (and renewables in general) vs. coal, gas, nuclear (old school) electricity generation, you'd do yourself (and those who have to listen to you rant) a service by reading the above linked article in the Daily Kos by Jerome a Paris (Jerome Guillet's nom de guerre). His credentials are good (he works in finance), and his arguments are concise and well-supported by evidence. Read it. You'll rejoice at the author's clarity and balance.

Massey Coal is blowing Coal River Mountain away...

...for a few bucks and a pile of rotten coal (more info?).These are excerpts from a letter I sent to the EPA, which I modeled after a Rainforest Action Network letter:

Put a stop to mountaintop removal coal mining on Coal River Mountain in West Virginia, which is the area's last mountain untouched by mountaintop removal. The blasting not only threatens communities in the vicinity, it will also destroy the potential for a wind project that had rallied local residents as a prime opportunity to create permanent jobs, strengthen the local economy and provide renewable energy to the region.

Coal River Mountain has enough wind potential to accommodate a 328-megawatt wind farm. Show Appalachia you care. Press for, approve and encourage the windfarm.

Worse, the blasting is near the Brushy Fork slurry impoundment, which holds 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry. Should the blasting cause the impoundment to fail, nearby residents would have just minutes to evacuate before they were overtaken by a 50-foot wall of coal slurry that could cost more than 1,000 lives.

Blasting near this unlined impoundment increases the risk of failure, and we know it. If the impoundment fails, we are all complicit in the destruction to Brushy Fork and its ground water. Let's act. Now.

Thanks!

Visit the Rainforest Action Network, and take action to preserve beautiful, verdant Appalachia. Now!

Go, Senator Hollings -- End "Free" Trade

My comments on a post by Senator Fritz Hollings on the Huffington Post: "Perfect Desertion"
Good stuff, Senator Hollings.

I'll put in my two cents, and reiterate some of your previous arguments:

Free trade is bad policy unless the foreign businesses we trade with adhere to exactly the same labor and environmental rules (and incur the same costs) as businesses in the U.S.

Wages may be lower elsewhere, but when they are, it is also generally true that workers have little or no collective bargaining rights, few or no worker safety rules, little or no worker compensation for on the job injuries, and little or no health care. Low wage countries also often ignore the environmental impact of unsound manufacturing processes, rendering air and drinking water toxic. All this eventually leads to civil unrest and global environmental impact. Both of which cost everyone when supply chains are disrupted, and landscapes and species are destroyed.

A VAT is preferable to corporate taxes, as you point out in earlier posts, since most corporations only pay about 3% corporate income tax on profit -- not the mandated 27% -- because they hire lawyers and accountants to move profits offshore. So, lawyers and accountants benefit instead of U.S. citizens who subsidize the corporations with infrastructure and defense investments (not to mention property tax rebates, and other incentives, paid for relocation). Plus, any economist will point out that corporate income tax is passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. With a VAT, at least, taxes paid by consumers go into public coffers instead of personal incomes for accountants, lawyers, and executives (27% levied minus 3% actually paid = 24% retained by corporate entities).

Further, a VAT benefits the national economy by discouraging consumption (tax on final sale -- regressive, but remember, corporate taxes are passed through -- equally regressive), while encouraging production (no taxes on manufacturing supply chain costs, just "value added" -- corporate profits). This, in turn, reduces prices to the consumer (demand is down), and encourages exports (price is down because domestic demand is down). Plus, most nations refund all or some VAT taxes paid by manufacturers when a product is exported (China, Europe, etc.), which further encourages exportation rather than leveraged (credit card debt) consumption at home. Finally, to alleviate regressive impact, we need not charge VAT on necessities like food, utilities, and medical care.

I hope all that reads true. I'm sure many will take issue, but I think the arguments against free trade and for a VAT are indisputable. Someone just needs to sell 'em. Go, Senator! (visit former Senator Hollings' web site: www.citizensforacompetitiveamerica.com.

Support S.1733...

A letter to my Senators:

The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733) is a nice start. It's a bonus that it preserves the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse
gas emissions.

Still, it just won't be enough, and the repercussions of not doing enough are myriad: stagnating economy with few green jobs, crippling effects of global warming (desertification, water shortages, crop failures, crushing coastal storms and floods, mass extinctions, etc.), and further diminished national prestige.

The U.S.A. is a bull-headed laggard on global warming. Let's not be.
Please persuade Senators Kerry and Boxer to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas pollution (40% below 1990 levels!) so that the United States will contribute its share to reducing global atmospheric CO2 below 350 parts per million.

You know what to do. Now lets find the courage of our convictions and take this country to a prosperous, proud future.

Thanks.

King Koal Feels the Pinch...a little

Good news...
(quoted from ilovemountains.org)

Today, September 11th, 2009, the EPA announced recommendations on 79 mountaintop removal valley fill permits that have been under review.

The EPA recommended that none of these permits be passed through for approval as they are written. The decision is not final, but is part of a coordination procedure outlined between the EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior. To understand the timeline and next steps, read our Background Info.

...and, a stunning, but depressing video from Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, which features local perspectives on the destruction caused by mountain top removal. Watch it:


Mountaintop Removal Slideshow from Kentuckians For The Commonwealth on Vimeo.

now, contact your congressional representative and urge them to support/co-sponsor:

• Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 1310) in the House
• Appalachia Restoration Act (S. 696) in the Senate

See which politicians line up for coal money at:
Follow the Coal Money
You can find your representatives' contact info here:
Contact Your Representative

Mountaintop removal continues...

So it ends.

The tree sitters, Nick Stocks and Laura Steepleton, (with Climate Ground Zero) at Pettry Bottom, West Virginia were chased away by mine security staff who saw fit to torment the protesters with lights, noise, and finally buzzing chainsaws. So the tree sitters descended. But not before six days passed and the two protesters delivered a little more attention to the plight of these verdant hills and hardwood forests which the Massey Mining Corp. is destroying for a few bucks profit. And don't think that Massey employs loads of local residents in their calamitous endeavor. They don't. In fact, with groundwater cleanups, road construction, etc. it would be cheaper for the states where mountaintop removal is conducted to pay the miners to stay home. But that's not where the real money is. The real money goes into executive's pockets. And then around election time, a bit of those ill-gotten gains are used to buy the compliance and silence of key politicians.

Meanwhile, local residents get screwed: their groundwater is poisoned, their air is fouled with dust, the silence is punctuated with earthshaking dynamite blasts, their villages and homes are threatened by rickety sludge impoundments, and their long cherished hunting, fishing, berry & mushroom picking, and hiking grounds are lost forever. Instead of rippling hills and valleys with sun-dappled glades and sparkling streams, they are left with flat, gray, infertile plains of wasteland. And so are the rest of us. Forever.
more...

Mountaintop Removal, To Our Shame, Continues

Right now, there are two people, Nick Stocks and Laura Steepleton, from climategroundzero.net sitting on postage stamp platforms in two different trees. They've been up there for days and they've got buckets for privies to prove it. Sun, fog, rain, wind -- they've stayed because they're disgusted with the inertia of a political system that allows the travesty of mountaintop removal to continue. Coal companies will destroy gorgeous Appalachia -- hard-working Appalachia -- for no good reason whatsoever. That is, they'll destroy it for money. And they'll do it surrounded by the people who's lives they've ruined, who've gotten very little of that money at all. Surely not enough to send out a fleet of lawyers and lobbyists to stop the destruction of their ancestral lands.

And the coal they get from 500,000 acres of flattened, poisoned hills and valleys; 2,000 miles of ruined streams? It provides 7% of the nation's electricity. You could cut your consumption 7% overnight: turn off a few unnecessary lights, or shut off the TV when you're not in the room, or unplug a few vampire power packs sticking out of the wall (or plug them in to a power strip with an old-fashioned on/off switch).

Here's a damn good explication of the facts from a fine writer who lives in Kentucky, Silas House: Devastating View from the Mountaintop Read it, then go here to tell your elected representatives to get off their asses and do something. Now. more...