A Free-Market Energy Blog

Will Cape Wind Save Billions? Challenging a Study by Charles River Associates

By Glenn Schleede -- February 13, 2010

[Editor note: Glenn Schleede wrote this letter-to-the-editor in response to  a news report published in the Cape Cod Times, Cape Wind Savings Pegged in Billions”.]

Dear Editor:

Thanks for the article in your February 11, 2010, edition, but electric customers in New England should not believe the claim that the Cape Wind project will save them “Billions” on their electric bills.

Frankly, the numbers in the slick 9-page “consultant” study released by the developer of the Cape Wind project of $4.6 billion in savings over 25 years just don’t add up for at least four major reasons:

1. Huge Cost of Cape Wind electricity. The true cost of electricity from wind – particularly offshore wind — is huge. No one who is paying attention expects the price that Cape Wind charges for its electricity to be cheap.…

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Wind Integration: Incremental Emissions from Back-Up Generation Cycling (Part V: Calculator Update)

By Kent Hawkins -- February 12, 2010

Why has California expressed concern over the EPA holding up approvals for natural gas-fired power plants?

Answer: because state regulators know that California’s gas plants are crucial for establishing new wind and solar projects. After all, firming intermittent power sources is essential short of employing cost-prohibitive battery packs to continuously match supply to consumption.

But the analysis can go a step further. What if the gas backup actually runs more poorly in its fill-in role than if it existed in place of the wind and/or solar capacity? It does run less efficiently, in fact, creating incremental fuel use and air emissions that cancel out the fuel/emissions “savings” from wind.

Thus California should go a step further than just allowing new natural gas capacity. Regulators should rethink the rational of wind per se and block its new capacity–if only by removing the government subsidies that enable industrial wind power in the first place.…

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Why the EPA is Wrong about Recent Warming

By Chip Knappenberger -- February 11, 2010

[Editor note: The author has added an update at the end showing why it can be reasonably argued that anthropogenic greenhouse gases may be responsible for less than half of the observed warming since the mid-20th century]

Back in December, the EPA announced that it had determined that greenhouse gases released by human activities “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” This “Endangerment Finding” is the first step toward EPA’s issuing regulations aimed at restricting GHG emissions in the U.S.

Unfortunately for the EPA, a major pillar of support of the Endangerment Finding—that “most” of the “observed warming” since the mid-20th century is from greenhouse gas emissions from human activities—has been shown by recent scientific research in major peer-reviewed scientific journals to be largely in doubt.

Add this result to the list of problems that seems to grow longer with each passing day as more IPCC gaffes are uncovered and Climategate emails are parsed.…

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“Cap-and-Divide”: More Civil War on the Left Over Capping Carbon

By Robert Murphy -- February 10, 2010
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The Left Confronts the Eco-Police State (yet another PR problem for climate alarmism?)

By Kenneth P. Green -- February 9, 2010
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Remembering Julian Simon (1932–1998)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 8, 2010
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‘Green’ Wind, ‘Smart’ Grid–A Thought Experiment and a Policy Proposal for the Environmental Left

By -- February 6, 2010
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Energy Myths versus Reality

By Tom Tanton -- February 5, 2010
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Time to Repeal New Source Review? (Up to 30 GW of coal-plant upgrades hangs in the balance)

By Robert Peltier -- February 4, 2010
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The Left Can Also Disown Cap-and-Trade (change a few words from Bob Herbert’s rejection of government health care and there you have it!)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- February 3, 2010
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