Author Topic: New York's Wind Power Plans Make No Sense  (Read 212 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online Elderberry

  • TBR Contributor
  • *****
  • Posts: 24,280
New York's Wind Power Plans Make No Sense
« on: April 13, 2021, 10:57:37 pm »
Real Clear Energy By Daniel Turner 4/13/2021

But Democrat candidate Eric Adams’ wind power proposal is not that plan, and it’s with great respect and an open invite to sit down with the candidate, and any candidate of any party, to explain why.

Mr. Adams noted Rhode Island’s wind farm as an example of a state committed to the technology. In the last few years it added Block Island Wind Farm to its electricity production. How has it been thus far? Let’s explore.

The promises were great. The wind farm promised to cut electricity rates on Block Island by 40%. Rates have gone up, from 47 cents per kilowatt hour in 2011 to 54 cents per kWh in 2020 (as a comparison, the national average in 2020 was 13.19 cents per kWh). It promised to create “800 new jobs”.  It actually created just 300. And all of the costs, like the mislaid cable and the turbine damaged from a forgotten drill bit, are being passed onto the rate payers.

What’s the incentive to build things properly when the costly errors are paid by someone else?

Then there was the promise of future savings. In order to pay for the $300 million project, the construction company received an electricity purchase pricing from the national grid of 24.4 cents per kWh with an automatic annual increase of 3.5%, a price so outlandishly high it required special law from Rhode Island’s legislature.

The environmentalists were giddy with this plan. Inside Climate News, the “Pulitzer Prize winning non-partisan” green blog penned a 2017 article breathlessly praising republican “converts” and proclaiming the end of fossil fuel economics.

All this for a wind farm which generates 300 megawatts of power.  That’s enough to “power 17,000 homes” scream all the enthusiasts, it never says as what cost, financial cost, for the people of Rhode Island.

Is New York City going to do this throughout its entire coast? For 300 megawatts? When the city, at its peak, requires over 12,000 megawatts of power? How much of New York harbor, Coney Island, the Rockaway coastline, needs to be inundated with wind turbines to even make a dent into the city’s energy needs? And at what cost?

More: https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/04/13/new_yorks_wind_power_plans_make_no_sense_772448.html