My Super Bowl Wish

By Lloyd the Idiot

Move it to Saturday!  Come on, Goodell!


  • Eric the 1/2 Troll says:

    20% Wind sourced energy in the US? Here is a nice presentation that says that it actually CAN happen…

    As to your baseload “issue” there is this to offer:

    “Wind excels at providing energy, as its fuel source is free. Wind also provides some capacity, typically in a ratio of about one unit of capacity for every two units of average energy output.4 A wind plant’s exact amount of capacity varies depending on a number of site-specific factors, as well as the time horizon being considered. Wind plants can also rapidly and precisely reduce their output on command, giving them excellent flexibility for reducing supply. Flexibility to increase power supply is much more difficult for wind plants, as doing so requires holding the plant below its potential output, sacrificing a significant amount of energy that could have been produced for free.

    Nuclear and coal plants, conventionally thought of as “baseload” plants, are remarkably similar to wind plants in that they are predominantly energy resources. Like wind, their fuel costs and operating costs are very low. Nuclear and coal plants are capable of providing capacity at a level close to their maximum output. Even so, no power plant can be counted on to reliably provide capacity at its maximum output, as all plants experience mechanical, electrical, or other failures from time to time and must go offline with little notice. For example, nuclear power plants in the southeastern U.S. have been forced to shut down, some for periods of several weeks, because summertime heat waves raised the temperature of the water in the rivers they rely on for cooling their steam generators. Wind energy, by contrast, uses no water.”

    And from this:

    “Recent studies of wind power installed on United States grids have attempted to determine the actual cost of intermittency. They indicate it is currently in the area of a 2-5 tenths of a cent per kWh, depend- ing on penetration. The higher costs were for 20% penetration. A few tenths of a cent per kWh is not insignificant, but it is still a small percentage of the total cost of generating power (which for wind power might be in the range of 2-6 ¢/kWh). ”

    So not that anyone is discussing completely converting our system to wind (as I said, I like nuclear and natural gas – just not coal) BUT a 20% penetration is very feasible even taking into account intermittency.

    It really gets very tiresome (entertaining, yet tiresome) proving your rants wrong time and time again.

    In the future, if you wish us to believe anything you write, you might want to have some sources to back you up. Asking us to just take your word for it is wearing thin.

  • Why don’t you try to find some unbiased data rather than the propaganda cranked out by the AWEA? Unlike you, I have actually attended several annual AWEA conventions as I was very interested in getting into the wind business a few years back, in fact I have utilized alternative energy for my own home for over twenty years. I came to the conclusion after two years of research and analysis, including visits and interviews at several manufacturers and potential employers, that wind was still an investment that cannot survive without significant, market distorting government incentives and controls, which is why the industry goes back into hibernation whenever the incentives go away or governments offering them like Spain go bankrupt.

    There is a place for wind, like remote villages near the Arctic Circle where fuel is scarce and expensive, or other remote places like ski or island resorts where both the steady wind resource and the power demand are in a state of cohabitation, but the only large scale wind development that would come close to being economically viable and approach penetration of over ten percent without subsidy is off-shore, and the coastal elitists will never allow it.

    Why do you think my namesake, T. Boone Pickens cancelled his plans to build the largest wind farm in the world three years ago? Natural gas went into a boom, prices went down and the pinwheels could not compete, even with the incentives offered by bankrupt states and the Feds. There’s no “there”, there.

  • Eric the half a troll says:

    “…approach penetration of over ten percent without subsidy is off-shore, and the coastal elitists will never allow it.”

    If we can believe what you post (since you never post any support-biased or unbiased-for your claims which are typically found to be false upon examination), I say what is wrong with subsidies? Why should renewables have to reach a higher standard than all other energy forms?

  • Eric the 1/2 Troll says:

    Wow, TDP, when you give us a break from one of your long winded rants, you link us to another long winded rant. But at least you provided some sort of support to your position. Even the AWEA does not deny that there are issues with the concept trying to use wind to completely replace conventional plants. No one has suggested that, however. In the end, the problems with variability are often tackled with simply over building wind capacity to account for it. That means that wind is more expensive unsubsidized than is gas (which IS subsidized). But again, I ask, so what. Subsidize away. But I do like the idea that one can better invest that money into energy conservation and it will be far more effective. The economics are outlined in one of the myriad of articles (some rather good) that the rant you linked to cite.

    See Page 36

    “For a system with a peak demand of 6,500 MW, 1500 MW of WPG represents a wind energy penetration level of 11.7%. The EU target for Ireland, from all renewable sources, is 13.2%. Therefore it can be estimated that, in the long term, using WPG to comply with the EU target will increase electricity generation costs by 15% (€196m as a percentage of €1.28bn). This translates to a CO2 abatement cost in excess of €120/tonne.


    I am all good with investing far less per ton of carbon emitted in the US and plunging those dollars into energy conservation programs.

    Keep wind in the mix, along with nuclear, natural gas, solar and other renewables. Can coal.

    I think the funniest part of the rant you linked to was the complaint about the holes that had to be dug to build the foundation of a wind turbine. A fair point on its own but I suppose the author has never seen the whole mountain top removal process used to get at coal, eh?

    and then there is the whole flyash thing:

  • FedUp says:

    Troll, thanks for the link to the 20% wind energy by 2030 report. It’s been around for a while now and I’ve read it before.

    The 20% goal is only for the electricity sector, which is roughly 40% of the nation’s energy consumption. So even if this fantasy became a reality, wind power would only generate 8% of the nation’s energy. Demand for electricity is forecast to increase much higher than 20% by 2030, so adding wind power would not even keep pace with demand and carbon emissions for the sector would continue to rise.

    The scenario requires adding massive numbers of wind turbines. I just don’t see that happening without massive government subsidies. What’s wrong with subsidies, you ask? I guess you haven’t noticed that there have been 4 straight years of trillion dollar deficits and deficit reduction is a low priority with this administration. The government is broke. Who will pay for these subsidies?

    It would also require costly upgrades to the transmission system.

    Placing the wind turbines where they need to be will be a problem. How would Virginia residents react if someone proposed to place turbines on the ridges of the Blue Ridge Mountains? That’s where the wind is and that’s where the turbines need to be placed. I imagine the NIMBYs would be out in full force!

  • FedUp, I once showed that to replace the base load capacity of the Hoover Dam you would need an endless string of 2MW wind turbines down the west ridge of I-81 from Wilkes Barre to the Tennessee border. It is all nonsense and it is all predicated upon the belief, yes I said belief, that man-made CO2, .00000008% of the atmosphere by weight, contributing only .12% of total greenhouse effect when including water vapor (itself contributing to 95% of global warming) is the cause of global warming.

    Strangling and weakening the private sector by placing such a massive bet on inefficient technology only makes us less capable of dealing with any CO2 “problem”, man-made or otherwise. If there really is a threat from “climate change” that man wishes to do something about, it will not happen if all the major powers of the world have become bankrupt socialist societies, which is the direction that greenhouse mitigation and health care “reform” are taking us. If we were suddenly faced with the threat of a asteroid extinction, who would the world turn to for a solution if the U.S. is just another bankrupt, corrupt socialists society… China? Denmark?

  • Eric the 1/2 a troll says:


    So I am fine with eliminating ALL energy subsidies including proving public security for the acquisition and transport of foreign crude oil. Once that is terminated, I will support your position. Until then it makes no sense.

  • Eric the 1/2 a troll says:

    “FedUp, I once showed that to replace the base load capacity of the Hoover Dam”

    Why would anyone want to replace a renewable energy source with another. Further, are you suggesting a govt infrastructure investment on the scale of the Hoover Dam in order to promote renewables. I’m down with that!!

  • No, Half Brain, I was just using the Hoover Dam as an easily recognized example. Actually it has only been running at a fraction of its 6GW capacity for decades because its primary mission is flood control, not generation, and the liberal residents of the Southwest prefer to divert scarce water to keep their lawns green and the fountains spouting at the Bellagio rather than to reduce hated CO2 emissions by running the dam at full capacity. You could substitute two base load coal plants into that I-81 equation if you wish.

  • FedUp says:

    “So I am fine with eliminating ALL energy subsidies…”

    Troll, the cost of wind subsidies per unit of electricity produced is far higher than nuclear, coal or natural gas subsidies. See this excellent WSJ article by Phil Gramm:

    There’s also a potential problem that could hinder growth of wind power — a shortage of rare earth metals:

  • I knew it would happen… internet chatter about the fact that the meteor and NEO asteroid events today were a “message” about man-made CO2 and climate change, that the effects of the explosion over Russia were worsened by rising CO2 levels.

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