The much touted benefits of wind come with a fatal caveat: industrial wind turbines–suffering from intermittency, low average-usage factors, remote siting, relatively high (and all-up-front) costs–are uneconomic. So the fact that the Wind industry creates jobs and can piggyback on consumer-chosen, taxpayer-neutral, baseload power is no consolation.

The starting point of economics is that wants exceed resources. Market prices are therefore needed to allocate resources. Out of a wide range of technical possibilities (including wind-produced electricity), only a small subset is economic desirable as well. Think of a bullet train from Los Angeles to New York City–technically possible but uneconomic when compared to air travel. Only freely acting consumers in a government-neutral marketplace can decide the difference.

The new study cosponsored by the American Wind Energy Association, Electricity Markets, Reliability, and the Evolving U.S.…

“If the purpose is to show fuel consumption by various fuels in electricity generation, the correct measure is not the electricity produced but the fuel consumed with the impact of erratic and unreliable wind and solar generation accounted for.”

This is the second post in a series reviewing Power magazine’s article on the International Energy Agency (IEA) paper, the recent World Energy Outlook. Part I yesterday dealt with installed capacity projections to 2040 and showed that this was a misleading measure. This post will show that in understanding fuel consumption, simply reporting the electricity produced is also misleading.

To illustrate the trends in fuels for electricity generation, the Power magazine article shows a more complex chart of electricity generation flows (compared to the installed capacity in Part I), reflecting such things as the net effect of plant closures and new plant construction to arrive at a result for 2040.…

“Perhaps most important is the self-fulfilling prophesy: if renewables are made to look more attractive, they’ll increase in actual use. As they increase in use, according to the EERE Guidance document but not reality, they look more favorable. Rinse and repeat.”

“The net effect of the “guidance” is to artificially discriminate against one of America’s most abundant and cleanest energy forms, natural gas.”

“… we believe DOE should rescind this report and any applications of it within Federal policies and regulations.”

Part 2 identifies some of the more egregious technical flaws in EERE’s “Accounting Conventions for Non-Combustible Renewable Energy Use.” Part I yesterday discussed process deficiencies.

Despite the innocuous appearance of an RFI, what EERE ultimately did was to issue a “Technical Report” which, in fact, is more far-reaching than just “guidance” and would impact a multitude of state and federal programs.…

“The diversion of the associated massive investment of national wealth away from mitigation to adaption policies is most likely our best chance of meeting all the other major threats to humanity, many of which are more ‘clear and present’ than global warming.”

How are the vast majority of us to assess the claims of problematic global warming and mandated responses? At present, we are simply being told by ‘experts’ what is happening, and what we must do about it. The task of properly assessing climate issues is very complex, and individually we do not have the time to devote to the immense task of properly doing this.

One helpful approach is a simple decision tree model to evaluate policy options for global warming that has been published by Michael Cochrane, whose background includes a Ph.D.…