The “emegency” was not enough profits for the fossil fuels industry, rather than a need for the electricity an ancient coal-burning power plant might generate, and the Trump administration plan has been to prevent all coal-burning power plants from shutting down — even if they’re already broken, don’t work, aren’t needed, or are simply more expensive than wind, solar, and utility-scale batteries.
Wind has about a 30-40% capacity factor (varies by location) so maybe multiple by about 3 to get to the roughly 90-95% capacity factor of coal plants. Wind also requires a lot more regulation because it doesn’t ramp up/down easily. Wind is cheaper than coal, but the math is way more complicated than what you’re presenting.
Not really, have a friend who is inhouse counsel for bp, they are investigating heavy in wind and have been since 2009. The industry speaks for itself.
What’s not really? Do YOU know anything about energy markets?
A little, handle oil and gas litigation in TX
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In that case I can tell that you don’t!
Naw, but seriously, I would like to hear the more complicated answer to why wind isn’t as viable. Even with needing three to have the same capacity, and even assuming that it scales linearly, it still seems like wind is a lot cheaper for what they’re presumably trying to accomplish, which is to provide energy rather than extract value, right?
I didn’t say wind isn’t viable. I said it was cheaper than coal. I just think the explanation of the costs here is wrong. And then I went on to briefly mention some of the big costs that are missing. There are others, such as modernizing the transmission system, but I didn’t want to get too technical. For those that don’t know, regulation is the term they use for the flexible energy that is needed to match energy supply to demand at the sub-hourly level. Also, sorry I realized that comment was condescending and regretted it immediately. I thought I had deleted it right away but I guess not. I also edited my comment to try to make it more clear that I am saying wind is cheaper, even though I don’t really see how that was ever read the other way. I have a lot of experience in energy market analysis and am just trying to drop some knowledge here.