There are no 2016 costs at that link. It is the same 5 year in the future estimates you were just complaining about. Except these estimates are even older. They were values taken from EIA's 2015 annual energy outlook. So not only are they still estimates, they are old estimates.KaiserJeep wrote:Kub, here's the cost of power generation from 2016: http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/t ... tion-cost/
But what purpose is served by comparing last year's measured costs to a projected cost 5 years in the future? Such projected figures are not real, especially since they were generated in April of this year, before Trump/Pruitt announced the repeal of Obama's CPP. Coal and nuclear today are the two cheapest energy sources, and I don't believe that will change in a mere 5 years.
Koch groups try debunked wind attack for a fourth timeA new attack piece by a Koch front group, Institute for Energy Research, recycles their familiar attack playbook of starting with an inflated cost for wind energy and then mischaracterizing how the power system functions to argue that the real cost of wind is even higher.
Like the three other Koch-funded attack pieces before them, Thomas F. Stacy and George S. Taylor’s first trick in their paper “The Levelized Cost of Electricity from Existing Generation Sources” is using obsolete wind cost assumptions. Stacy and Taylor use an old government estimate to claim that the cost of wind energy is $80.30/MWh, or 8 cents per kWh, while more recent market data indicates actual wind energy costs are less than half that amount. Specifically, market data indicate the actual average purchase price for wind energy was $25.59/MWh in 2013, or well under $50/MWh if the impact of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) on long-term wind purchase prices is removed. As explained below, this cost is significantly lower than the benefits provided by wind energy, indicating that wind energy provides significant net benefits.
Stacy and Taylor’s cost estimate is even higher than the most recent government estimate, which puts the national average cost of wind at $73.60/MWh. Notably, this government estimate overstates actual wind costs because it assumes wind plants will be built evenly in all regions when in reality most wind plants are built in regions with wind resources that are far above average, and because it uses installed wind costs that are about 20 percent higher than the latest market data. As we’ve noted previously, it is strange that a group that claims to support free market principles relies on government cost estimates instead of price information provided by actual market data.
It adds a few new, seriously flawed attacks
With this already high, obsolete estimate of wind costs, the report then uses flawed assumptions and arguments to increase it with various cost multipliers and adders.
The EIA has already developed a quantitative method that accounts for all of the costs that Stacy and Taylor attempt to add to wind’s costs, and it comes up with a result that is a factor of 4 lower. EIA’s method accounts for differing levels of dispatchability (ability to change generation output) and capacity value (ability to meet peak electricity demand) among power plants. EIA’s calculation found that there is only a 10 percent difference, or a difference of about $7/MWh, between the value provided by a wind plant and a more dispatchable gas plant. This is much lower than the more than 40 percent cost adder that Stacy and Taylor attempt to add to their already inflated wind cost, and far less than the 100+ percent cost adder the other Koch reports have attempted to add to their inflated estimates of wind costs.
Most critically, EIA’s method shows that a MWh of wind energy has an average economic value of $64.60/MWh, much higher than the current cost of wind energy of under $50/MWh, indicating wind energy provides net benefits for consumers. Of course, this calculation ignores the many other benefits that wind energy provides relative to other energy sources, such as wind plants’ lack of fuel cost and fuel price risk, wind plants’ lack of air emissions, wind plants’ lack of water consumption and withdrawals, and others.
“Imposed costs” are actually “sunk costs”
While most of Stacy and Taylor’s attack on wind is based on rehashing previously debunked Koch pieces, they do try to introduce the novel concept of “imposed cost.” However, the likely reason no one has previously made this argument is that it runs afoul of basic economic principles and realities of power system operations. First, the concept of “imposed costs,” as put forward by Stacy and Taylor, runs afoul of economics principles. The addition of wind does not require the addition of new capacity, and almost all regions of the U.S. have more than enough generating capacity, so in almost all cases wind is primarily displacing the output of existing power plants. As a result, Stacy and Taylor’s “imposed cost” is what an economist would refer to as a “sunk cost.” Sunk costs are exactly that – sunk – meaning that they have already been spent and cannot be recovered and therefore should not be factored into rational decision-making for the future. Said another way, there is no cost to society for building a power plant that is already built.
Stacy and Taylor fail to apply an “imposed cost” on existing coal and nuclear generators, which “impose” a many times greater impact on the dispatch of other generators than wind (as does electricity demand variability). As national laboratory experts have explained, the presence of an inflexible baseload generator on a power system’s fleet is a primary factor forcing other generators to cycle their output and run at reduced capacity factors. In fact, one can see the same phenomenon in a nearly identical chart that appears on page 8 of Stacy and Taylor’s paper – if fewer baseload plants were present in their example, the mid-merit units could run at far higher capacity factors. Similarly, should “imposed costs” have been assigned to gas generators in 2012 when the fuel cost of many natural gas power plants dropped below that of many coal plants, forcing the coal plants to operate at reduced output? Stacy and Taylor’s argument that power plants that provide low-cost energy should be penalized for being too cheap while the more expensive power plants that are being displaced should be rewarded for being too costly is strangely perverse for a group that pretends to advocate for a “free market.”
Yeah KJ, I get that not everything is available online and much of what is online is crap. Doesn't mean you have to add to the problem by quoting propaganda sources.KaiserJeep wrote:Kub, I don't think you are grasping the true nature of reality here. Those with their noses pointing constantly at video screens never really do.
You see, there is a real world out there, where real things happen and get written down in unchanging paper texts. Then there is an online version of the world, reflected in an information network that never was an accurate, true reflection of the real world, and where the information is constantly being edited by multiple parties, all with agendas.
Actually I first debunked them with EIA figures as well as pointing out inaccuracies in the IER piece. But then you said the EIA was projecting a renewable energy agenda? Don't know how you got that. I am aware AWER has an agenda, just as IER does. That is why I try to quote more neutral sources like the EIA, IEA, etc. Of course even those organizations are run by people who each have their own biases. But I find them more balanced than groups who's sole existence is to push an agenda like the IER.KaiserJeep wrote:You try to debunk it using a blog entry on AWER - American Wind Energy Association. Both places have agendas, none of the figures reflect reality.
You did? I must have missed that. Can you point me at that warning?KaiserJeep wrote:I was aware of the problems with the IER data and I warned everybody.
I would not call you a liar just because you said something I could not find online. But if you are so grounded in reality, why were you quoting such an obviously biased source as the IER?KaiserJeep wrote:Many people would do a web search, and call me a liar because the information is not online, and even think they were correct. But my reality is not based on what I read online. Besides that, my ass still hurts, a reminder not to invest in Green Dreams.
kublikhan wrote:-snip-
I would not call you a liar just because you said something I could not find online. But if you are so grounded in reality, why were you quoting such an obviously biased source as the IER?
2016 Wind Technologies Market ReportWind energy continues to be sold at attractive prices through power purchase agreements, making this renewable energy source cost-competitive with traditional power sources such as natural gas in many parts of the U.S.
2016 Wind Technologies Market ReportThe prospects for [wind capacity] growth beyond the current PTC cycle remain uncertain, given declining federal tax support, expectations for low natural gas prices, and modest electricity demand growth.
• Wind power purchase agreement (PPA) prices remain very low. After topping out at $70/MWh for PPAs executed in 2009, the national average levelized price of wind PPAs within the Berkeley Lab sample has dropped to around the $20/MWh level—though this latest nationwide average is admittedly focused on a sample of projects that largely hail from the lowest-priced Interior region of the country, where most of the new capacity built in recent years is located. Focusing only on the Interior region, the PPA price decline has been more modest, from ~$55/MWh among contracts executed in 2009 to ~$20/MWh today. Today’s low PPA prices have been enabled by the combination of higher capacity factors, declining costs, and record-low interest rates documented elsewhere in this report.
• The relative economic competitiveness of wind power has been affected by the continued decline in wholesale power prices. A continued decline in wholesale power prices in 2016 made it somewhat harder for wind power to compete, notwithstanding the low wind energy PPA prices available to purchasers. This is particularly true in light of the continued expansion of wind development in the Interior region, where wholesale power prices are among the lowest in the nation. That said, the average future stream of wind PPA prices from contracts executed in 2014–2017 compares very favorably to the EIA’s latest projection of the fuel costs of gas-fired generation extending out through 2050.
• The federal production tax credit remains a core motivator for wind power deployment. In December 2015, Congress passed a 5-year phased-down extension of the PTC, which provides the full PTC to projects that start construction prior to the end of 2016, before dropping in increments of 20 percentage points per year for projects starting construction in 2017 (80% PTC), 2018 (60%), and 2019 (40%).
Future Outlook
Analysts project that annual wind power capacity additions will continue at a rapid clip for the next several years, before declining, driven by the 5-year extension of the PTC signed in December 2015 and the progressive reduction in the value of the credit over time. Additionally, near-term additions are impacted by improvements in the cost and performance of wind power technologies, which contribute to low power sales prices. Demand drivers also include corporate wind energy purchases and state-level renewable energy policies. As a result, various forecasts for the domestic market show expected capacity additions averaging more than 9,000 MW/year from 2017 to 2020 (a pace that is supported by the amount of PTC-qualified wind turbine capacity that was reportedly safe-harbored by the end of 2016). Forecasts for 2021 to 2025, on the other hand, show a downturn in part due to the PTC phase-out. Expectations for continued low natural gas prices, modest electricity demand growth, and lower near-term demand from state RPS policies also put a damper on growth expectations, as do inadequate transmission infrastructure and competition from solar energy in certain regions of the country. At the same time, the potential for continued technological advancements and cost reductions enhance the prospects for longer-term growth, as does burgeoning corporate demand for wind energy and continued state RPS requirements. Moreover, new transmission in some regions is expected to open up high-quality wind resources to development. Given these diverse underlying potential trends, wind capacity additions—especially after 2020—remain deeply uncertain.
Coal emerged as the surprise winner from two weeks of international climate talks in Germany, with leaders of the host country and neighboring Poland joining Donald Trump in support of the dirtiest fossil fuel.
While more than 20 nations, led by Britain and Canada, pledged to stop burning coal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her country’s use of the fuel and the need to preserve jobs in the industry. Meanwhile Poland’s continued and extensive use of coal raised concerns that the next meeting, to be held in the nation’s mining heartland of Katowice, could thwart progress.
“People don’t have total confidence that Poland wants to increase ambition, to put it plainly,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. “They’re 80 percent dependent on coal, they’ve been pushing back against European Union proposals to increase ambition.”
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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