Comments on: Cost Estimates of T. Boone’s Colossal Wind Farm Keep Rising

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:58:57 +0000

This stuff is crazy. Wind generated power runs about 30 cents a kWatt and Solar about 50 cents. Compare this to all other generating sources at about 8 cents. WE WILL PAY FOR THIS difference in our bills, and WHY? AND it gets worse. Wind only blows about 1/3 of the time, then what do we do? Solar is good for about 1/2 the time AT BEST. The insanity continues. Last night I saw a PBS story where people were working on ways to store wind and solar power for when the wind does not blow and the sun does nto shine. How much will that add to the cost of a KW? Insane.

This is one hundred percent stupidity and political.

There is ZERO reason for any of this. Ok, you believe in global warming. Let's take a step back. HELLO!!!! Nuclear power produces ZERO carbon and costs 6 to 8 cents per KW. HELLO!

Stop the insanity.

And if you worry about nuclear waste, which is also silly, but ok; look into nuclear power generated from Thorium.

By: Bruce Oksol

Bruce Oksol — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:09:58 +0000

Any update on this project?

By: John Case

John Case — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:22:14 +0000

As a country, we Americans should spend massive amounts of our taxpayer dollars to eliminate coal energy production completely. Even though we have over a hundred years of reserves and unfavorable emissions are gradually reducing.

Maybe we should focus entirely on geothermal energy, except the construction cost are high per kwh, and the good sites tend to be in remote areas we should not spoil.

Let’s move completely to solar panels and cover or shade large swaths of land. But then we would have to engineer huge battery capacity for overnight demand.

Maybe we should just raise wind turbines, but we still need the batteries and watch out for flying ice and shattered blades.

That leaves nuclear, biomass, hydro, natural gas and others with their own unique benefits and drawbacks.

The point here is that they ALL have their place to help us meet our growing energy demands. What we really need is the methodology to put these new, cleaner, and renewable electrons into our cars so we can stop exporting trillions of dollars each year to maintain our crude oil addiction

By: solargroupies

solargroupies — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:07:43 +0000

Yeah, Pickens’ turbines were not turning. In the meantime, our nuclear power plant was shut down due to abnormalities and we still have no place to safely store the radioactive waste for 500,000 years, the climate is destabilizing faster than they thought, with irreversible damage and you are putting down wind power???

By: chris451

chris451 — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:02:48 +0000

I flew over picken’s wind farm near pampa, Tx.
None of the turbines were turning. Weather was calm for a couple of days.

By: Suzy M

Suzy M — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:12:59 +0000

In the US, nuclear waste disposal costs are built into the rates (as part of operating/liscensing costs the plant is charged by the NRC). NRC also has charges for security, inspections, etc. This is why operations costs are a bit higher than other fuel sources, but this is balance by low cost for fuel, which is also much much less volatile than gas, coal and petroluem. Per nuclearInfo.com the disposal cost works out to be ~0.2 cents /kWh.

By: Harold T

Harold T — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 13:14:27 +0000

What seems to get lost in the discussion is cost per operating KW. As a consumer my main concern is cost per KW, proponents of different sources of green energy seem to want to minimize that. If you have 100,000 people or better on energy assistance at current rates, how many would you have if you drove power prices up 20%? Most low income people are working and don’t want assistance from the government. In my state I see upper income people such as university professors advocating for green power, but they can afford it. It’s also wise to consider WHAT’S IN IT FOR PICKENS. Living in a northern state keeping warm can be expensive?

By: M Bates

M Bates — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:13:20 +0000

The key difference in the total costs of wind and nuclear is that folks who are proponents of nuclear do not figure the costs of the nuclear waste storage. What about the costs of building nuclear waste storage?
Regarding providing power “mostly when its not needed” wind power is most available during the day. Isn’t that when it is needed?
Also, regarding nuclear, I have not seen any costs associated with security issues or with clean up such three-mile island.
Please do write if you have factual numbers for any of these costs. I am looking for cradle to cradle costs.
Thanks.

By: JC

JC — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:20:15 +0000

The cost per KW of the Bush administration’s foray into clean coal – $6,500. FutureGen’s budget is up to $1.8 billion for the construction of a 275 MW power plant. Nevermind the future costs of sourcing coal, paying miners, transportation of coal, maintenance of complex systems (and the fact that you STILL have to get rid of mercury and toxins in the fly ash)…how much does additional wind cost?

By: Eideard

Eideard — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:14:29 +0000

Tom – since most of your comment sounds like a Rush Rehash – perhaps you might offer up some engineering sources to back it up?

By: tom c gray

tom c gray — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:15:28 +0000

Notice the exorbitant costs to build totally unreliable power generators: Dominion is building a 1600 MW nuclear plant in Virginia : estimated cost : $4,000
per kilowatt. Pickens is building these useless windturbines (T.Boone don’t understand that “nuklare stuff”) and spending at least $4,000 per kilowatt. But those are rated, not actual, capacities, which in the case of the nuclear plant would be about the same, since nuclear plants typically operate above 95% of their rated capacity, but wind operates anywhere from 18% to 37% of its capacity. Typically 25% would be close, so the actual
cost per generated kilowatt is closer to $16,000 for
wind power. But nuclear plants last 60 years, at least twice as long as a windmill, making the proper comparison figure for wind closer to $32,000 per kilowatt (for 60 yeasr). But that’s not the end of the excessive wind costs : wind cannot meet peak demand needs and so we must build new , controllable plants every year when our demand increases 2%. Thus wind power must be duplicated, making its comparative costs even greater. It’s obvious that the global wind industry and it environmentalist shills are defrauding the public
when they make their preposterously misleading ecomonic arguments. Wind costs a bundle, and produces small amounts of unreliable, unpredictable power , mostly when its not needed.

By: Wasn’t T. Boone Supposed to Be Earning Money Off Green? « Earth2Tech

Wasn’t T. Boone Supposed to Be Earning Money Off Green? « Earth2Tech — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:00:47 +0000

[...] a loss like this is exactly why Pickens is diversifying and placing such a large bet — $12 billion by last count — on wind. We’ll see if that, as well as his water investments, pays [...]

By: Bootleggers and Baptists in Texas and DC: Texas sells Pickens eminent domain powers and wind power transmission rights for his personal 8-acre "water district", while Sierra Club helps to push wind subsidies - TT`s Lost in Tokyo

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 03:49:55 +0000

[...] is expected to begin in 2009, to the tune of roughly $2 billion each. Pickens is set to spend $12 billion on the world’s largest wind farm in the Texas panhandle, while he expects his water investment in the area — around a $100 [...]

By: Pickens buys eminent domain powers and wind power transmission rights for his personal 8-acre "water district" - TT`s Lost in Tokyo

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:54:43 +0000

By: T.Boone.tv — The Green Oil Baron That’s Just Too Hip | Mostly Related.

T.Boone.tv — The Green Oil Baron That’s Just Too Hip | Mostly Related. — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:02:30 +0000

[...] exploration company Mesa Petroleum into one of the largest independent operators in the U.S. and plans to spend $12 billion on building the world’s largest wind farm. He thinks on a grand scale. Even if natural [...]

By: T.Boone.tv — The Green Oil Baron That’s Just Too Hip - GigaOM

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