Wind Power: Capturing the Air Up There

As a supporting Lempster resident, I feel there may be larger questions - perhaps unanswerable except in hindsight, - on this issue, and on Lempster's (which won't see the full property tax implications until later in 2009) majestic but not silent wind farm. What of Federal tax incentives and their skewing of industry, perception, and energy economics? Lisa is certainly vocal in her own arena, but can't represent all those who have nagging concerns that this might not be amongst the best choices to power our future. I hope it is, for our sake.

Wind power compliments solar power. These two should be built together. When the sun isn't shining it's cloudy, and what happens when it's cloudy? It's windy and stormy. With wind turbines high on the hills the wind is very constant even at night. It is rare not to see the windmills turning in Searsburg, VT. Wind & Solar together in the same generation facility is the answer.

Storage of extra energy is possible by making hydrogen and then burning it later to generate power (or use it in any number of ways as a fuel). This is done by taking DC power (from wind or solar) and putting probes into water. Bubbles of hydrogen are given off and can be collected and stored for later use. This is the solution to power being generated when not needed - use it to make hydrogen which can be stored. Hydrogen is the perfect clean fuel. When burned it only gives off heat and water vapor.

[Werme is pronounced WER-muh]

I can't find the full report at the moment, but a story about it at http://www.economist.com/finance/economicsfocus/displaystory.cfm?story_i... says that the what looks like an impressive move into wind energy, bringing 50,000 jobs would have brought twice that many regular jobs had the investment gone into the private sector.

It will be interesting to see how Spain handles the public debt incurred for their wind turbines.

From the Economist:

Gabriel Calzada Álvarez, a professor at King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, has tried to use empirical data to estimate how Spain’s subsidies for renewables, which so impressed Mr Obama, will affect employment. He calculates that the subsidies for existing renewable-electricity plants, which the government has promised to pay for 25 years, will cost €29 billion. Those subsidies, in turn, have created 50,200 jobs, according to data from the European Commission. That equates to a subsidy of over €570,000 per job.

Spain’s private sector, on the other hand, creates a job for every €260,000 or so invested, by Mr Calzada’s reckoning. So if the government had left the €29 billion in the hands of the private sector, it would have created 113,000 jobs with it—2.2 times as many. In other words, the government, Mr Calzada finds, is destroying 2.2 ordinary jobs for every green one it creates.

Here's another good summary that has a link to the full report:

http://thenewshive.com/blog/2009/05/phx-greenjobs/

Study of the Effects on Employment of Public Aid to Renewable Energy Sources is at http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable....

Laura,
One of your guests on wind power made the comment that wind power costs about 3.5 cents/kilowatt hour. I am wondering how they are calculating this cost? Is this just the operating cost? Does it include the capital cost of the turbine, the land, and other infrastructure costs? Also, what percentage of available time does the guest assume the unit will be producing electricity? He commented that the wind turbine was roughly the same cost as coal.
Thanks,
Mike