On 6/2/2011 12:43 AM, Lew Hodgett wrote:
....

If you look at the cost of ownership equation, wind power has a very
high front end cost, but after that operating costs drops drastically.

As every sailor knows, the wind is free, but putting it to use gets
expensive.
....

Again, if it weren't for the alternative sources req'd to be around
because it isn't reliable, that would be basically true.

In reality, it is nuclear that is expensive initial capital cost but for
which fuel costs are near minimal over time--which is what makes our REC
shared ownership of a fraction of Wolf Creek Nuclear by far the cheapest
power we have.

OK, I found the annual meeting minutes program I was looking for--we're
in process of trying to build a new coal-fired plant in W KS for future
demand for us and secondarily as an exporter to CO in return for the
revenue the extra power will bring to the local economies.

In there the current estimated construction costs are--

Coal $2500-$2600 /MWe
Nuke $5000-$5200 /MWe
Wind $2400-$2500 /MWe (including tax credits)

The kicker is that w/ wind we can only expect roughly 40% of that
installed capacity to be available (on annual capacity of 112 MWe
installed observed over nine years of actual production) so the actual
average installed cost is roughly 2.5X the above or $6000 /MWe-ongrid.

So, when one factors that into the overall operating cost of the
facility to satisfy a given load demand, the cost for wind is well above
any of the alternatives and this doesn't account for the capital cost
needed to ensure reliable backup from conventional or imported purchased
from an alternate-source to ensure the necessary reliability.

One has to consider what it actually requires to run a utility grid in
toto and simply the fact that one has X number of installed wind
generators of Y MWe rated capacity really has surprisingly little to do
with the Z number of MWe one can count on putting onto the grid at any
given instant. And, the bottom line is that one has to be able to do
the last 24/7 come wind or no.

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