Thread: This Is Not A CraigsList Notice

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For me, investing in alternative energy is a necessary cost, but the point of that list is that the way the money was handled in this latest round of "stimulus" borders on being criminal. There was very obviously no investigation into the strength, viability or even capabilities of several of the companies who had their hand out, most notably Solyndra. And no, Snake Oil Salesmen are not a new phenomena, they've been around since time began but it seems their schemes have gotten more elaborate. What is so sad is that had that money been funneled into legitimate enterprises we might actually have seen some good from that money as opposed to throwing it down a rat hole.

On your farmer friend, what would be interesting to know is how much he spent on his two wind turbines, and their capacity? If he indeed has not paid for electricity for that two years that says that his generating capacity exceeds his usage, and that the payments that he gets for power pumped into the grid, in excess of his usage, offsets the costs of those times when the wind power is insufficient to cover his needs or may be blowing too hard for the turbines to handle, and he buys power from NSP. Generally the utility will buy excess power that feeds the grid for less than 1/2 what you pay, which represents their actual cost for replacement power, and the payment can be reduced by time-of-day factors, and other factors depending on their needs. Bottom line, if you're buying power you may be paying $0.25 per KWH, but if you have excess they'll credit you a dime per KWH, or maybe a nickle if it's in the middle of the night when they have tons of spinning reserves (data from PG&E public rate information 2010 through 2012). These on-site wind turbine installations are often discussed, with people making big claims about savings in order to impress their friends, but the question becomes how many years does it take to offset the original costs, and when that point is reached where is that turbine in it's service life? Hiring a tall crane to come in, drop that unit to the ground, haul it back to the supplier and have new bearings and electrical components repaired/replaced is not a small cost for that farmer, I'd venture. The whole financial analysis of his installation would be interesting to know.

I have a friend who joined a large IPP wind company several years ago, and last year I talked to him about how things were going on one hot, sultry summer day when the utilities were screaming about their demand. He shared that they were monitoring something like 1000 large capacity wind turbines that they have installed from West Texas up into the Midwest, and every one was at zero rpm! Not one KW being generated from around 1500MW of capacity. Wind power is a valuable commodity, but we still have to either have a way to store energy, or must have spinning reserves to cover the load when the wind dies, so indeed investment in legitimate R&D is a good thing.

I've heard Costa Rica is a nice alternative to Australia, BTW. Heading there in a couple of weeks to see.....