The last quarterly update began: “In the current energy debate, the diligent amateurs are often the real pros, and too many ‘pros’ are amateurish.” This one ends: “Energy realities are worth explaining and championing in a political world.”

Here, here–and hear, hear.

MasterResource continues to be a movement-wide voice of free-market scholarship on energy and energy-related environmental issues. Some 150 different authors have been featured at our site since its inception in late 2008. Total views are nearing 1.5 million, with many visits by those searching on a topic relevant to past posts.

MasterResource is a top 25 “green blog,” according to Technorati. It has been in the top ten in the last week and yesterday was #16 of more than 9,100 sites.

With 457 categories, MasterResource is a research tool, not only a timely contribution to energy scholarship and current political debates.…

“If protecting my individual property rights and values makes me a NIMBY, then I wear the label proudly.”

I am a confessed NIMBY with strong feelings about government-enabled environmental degradation. I am not anti-windpower per se; I am, however, anti-bad ideas and anti-wasteful government spending of taxpayer money.

I am a NIMBY, but so is just about everyone. There are 314 million people in the U.S., virtually all of whom care about protecting their private property against intrusion, particularly unnecessary, wasteful, government-enabled intrusion. Critics are in denial of their own behavior when they criticize NIMBYs in the face of what some of us have faced with a proposed windpower development in our backyard.

“Quiet Enjoyment”

‘Quiet enjoyment’ is the legal right of a property owner to enjoy his/her property in peace without interference.…

“The following overview on these issues, and my concluding remarks, should leave little doubt as to the worthlessness and serious consequences of pursuing policies of supporting and implementing wind plants in particular. Will the other side respond in the interest of more informed public policy?”

As shown in Part I (Introduction & Summary), Part II (Analysis Approach & Implementation Costs), Part III (Total Costs), and Part IV  (Subsidies & Emissions), wind fails on the major considerations of cost and emissions. Yet unbelievably, it still enjoys general popularity and significant government support and subsidization. The answer must be in my response to question 1 in Part I: Wind is seen as a silver bullet – environmentally and politically.

On top of this, there are many other problems with wind that can cause serious, and needless, damage to society.…

Part I yesterday provided an introduction and summary of results; this post describes in more detail the analysis approach and implementation costs. Parts III and IV will cover the full costs and other results.

As will be seen, dealing with wind is not as easy as some would suggest.

Analysis Approach

This analysis looks at a 13 year period (years 0-12) in which the demand growth and plant retirement due to obsolescence/age will be each 2% per year compounded. Assuming year 0 is 2012, year 12 is 2025. Table II-1 shows the situation at year 12.

Table II-1 – Year 12 Situation for a Year 0 Demand Level of 1.0 TWh

Using demand of 1 TWh in year 0 allows easy scaling for a particular jurisdiction. For example in 2010 the total US electricity production was about 4,000 TWh.…