Facts are pesky things. And they're particularly pesky when it comes to the myths about the wind energy business. For years, it's been an article of faith among advocates of renewables that increased use of wind energy can provide a cost-effective method of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The reality: wind energy's carbon dioxide-cutting benefits are vastly overstated. Furthermore, if wind energy does help reduce carbon emissions, those reductions are too expensive to be used on any kind of scale. Those are the findings of an exhaustive new study, released today, by Bentek Energy, a Colorado-based energy analytics firm. Rather than rely on computer models that use theoretical emissions data, the authors of the study, Porter Bennett and Brannin McBee, analyzed actual emissions data from electric generation plants located in four regions: the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Bonneville Power Administration, California Independent System Operator, and the Midwest Independent System Operator. Those four system operators serve about 110 million customers, or about one-third of the U.S. population...
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2 comments:
Let those who want wind energy be confined to that particular type of generation, none other. I predict they will all be clamoring for a change in short order.
The big lie to start with is that we must reduce co2 emissions. Carbon dioxide is plant food, an invisible, odorless gas that is to the plant world as oxygen is to the animal world. CO2 makes up about 0.038% of our atmosphere, or 380 parts per million. Only 3% of that 0.038% is attributable to man. We humans exhale air that is 40,000 parts per million CO2. Submarines and space suits use filters to maintain co2 levels at less than 8000 parts per million, while scientific testing shows that submariners' health is not effected until levels exceed
30,000 parts per million.
We are co2 starved compared to our geologic past. We need more co2, not less.
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