Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that they are not subtle or clever, but it gets the message across. For non-Texas readers, Reliant and TXU are the two most popular energy companies in Houston. I designed these stickers at makestickers.com for $5 each. I can’t understand why more people don’t use bumper stickers to get their message across.
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Since I want my lights to turn on when I want them to, rather than just when the wind blows, I think I’ll take that coal-fired plant.
You want to stop global warming? Build nuclear power plants.
1. I believe science has figured out a way to store this wind-generated electricity.
2. Nuclear is a transitional solution. The problem is, it requires a lot of taxes. Joe Romm writes ,
New nuclear plants are so expensive they are likely to provide electricity at some 15 cents per kilowatt hour or possibly more than 20 cents/kWh. The precise answer — 50% higher than average U.S. electricity prices or more than 100% higher — is hard to know since it is all but impossible to find a utility willing to stand behind a firm price in a rate hearing.
In Texas, wind power is cheap (that is why Texas is being called the “Saudi Arabia of wind power).” Yet, many consumers still opt for coal. It defies comprehension.
Would you care to state what “science” has found?
Because in my research, there *is* *no* storage mechanism. *Every* watt generated by wind has to have another watt backed up in “spinning reserves” – typically gas turbines, the most expensive energy around – so that when the wind drops, the grid stays powered.
This effectively doubles or triples the cost of wind, and negates any CO2 savings as well.
I don’t know enough about this to have an opinion. Please provide a link to back up your assertion.
Here’s a Pew research page that gives an overview of wind power (its capabilities and limitations). Here’s some more information about wind power generation from a wind power consortium. The Wikipedia article on wind power doesn’t mention about this so-called tripling of costs.
Obviously there will be overhead costs related to wind power generation (no energy production is 100% efficient), but presumably a power generator will be able to support itself. I am not a scientist, but the problem you pose does not strike me as insurmountable. I’ve always been under the impression that there are issues with the power grid (the distance between the generators and the grid are greater than usual), and we really haven’t built that much up. Then again, I am not really knowledgeable about this.
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