I don’t mind experiments and tests, and tools for educating students. But like @Docnick says, 30 year payout is too long for real projects. Society can spend that money better elsewhere, spread that same money over several insulation/efficiency improvement projects with 5 year payouts and we’d be MUCH better off, like Doc’s furnace conversion.
Just because something replaces some electrical use with a ‘clean’ source doesn’t make it a good idea. (I’m looking at you, solar panels in cloudy/northern regions)
A 30 year payback is way too long; the turbines will be worn out by then.
May be viable for a commercial application IF the turbines last 40+ years.
Someone have data on the true payback for turbines…
According the several sites I found…the turbines paid for themselves after 4 years. So we have 30 or 4. I haven’t looked into it that much. But I suspect that companies around the globe wouldn’t be investing MILLIONS if they didn’t think it would be a good investment.
Good question. If the payout include the $56/mw-hr federal subsidy, then true, it paid out to the investor, but would it pay out just on the value of the power generated?
Ball State uses a geothermal system and not wind turbines. Taylor University uses the wind turbines. The geothermal system should still be functioning in 30 years. I have no idea how long the payback will be for the wind generators at Taylor University.
Ball State was faced with the problem of what to do about the pollution caused by coal fired boilers. The University has boilers fired by both gas and oil as well. Now, gas prices are dropping, so perhaps the coal boilers could have been replaced with gas. However, in very cold weather, gas usage by institutions and factories in the area is cut way back, so the coal boilers were retained. Fitting scrubbers on the coal fired boilers would have been expensive.
Politicians wrap every issue with smoke and mirrors to keep us confused. When all is said and done they and their friends usually win and we are stuck with the bills.
@Mike The 4 year payback is not a real payback based on the average power cost. It is the payback based on the Obama subsidized rates!!! Like 38cents+ per KWH or so. In some areas in North America the feed in tariff (subsidized rate) was as high as 58 cents!!!
In Denmark wind power is not subsidized and the users pay a blended rate of 38 cents per KWH with30% coming from wind power. The rest is fossil generated and IMPORTED nuclear power from Sweden. This is the equivalent of living an ECO LIE! Without the Swedish backup Denmark would be in the dark part of the time. If all power came from wind the KWH rate would be throught the roof, more like 65 cents.
The folks who tell you the 4 year payback are mouthing the same lies without investigating what the politicians have really told them.
Two years ago, I replaced the gas furnace in my house that was high-efficiency when we had the house built in 1989. The original furnace vented through a 2" or 3" pcv pipe. However, it took its combustion air from the attached garage where the furnace is located. The new furnace is 4 percentage points more efficient than the original. It pulls the combustion air from the outside. The garage is noticeably cooler so more heat is going into the house. Our gas bills are lower. However, the real reason for replacing the furnace was that the Clare company that made the furnace no longer manufacturers gas furnaces and some parts were hard to get. I had to wait about 10 days for a new blower that induces the draft. Rather than risk a winter with this furnace, we replaced it. The heat pump which heats the house when the outdoor temperature is above 38 degrees and cools the house in the summer was also replaced. Our summer electric bill is also lower.
Even in Western Oregon, where we have long cloudy winters, Solar is efficient enough to have a reasonable payback.
@longprime - the federal subsidies are 10X more for solar than wind, no wonder they have a reasonable payback. Eliminate the subsidies, I bet the payback is very long, if ever.
A friend at work is installing a geothermal system as a replacement unit at home. The heat exchanger goes straight down. Since the earth is a constant 50F or so in this area, this variety of heat pump can be very good at both cooling and heating without auxiliary systems.
A solar cell can be great for keeping batteries charged in remote locations but how can it have any significant input into an ac system? What is the functional loss in linking solar cell dc into household 110v ac? And what is the cost of the equipment needed to link the dc to ac? Could that equipment cost more than the solar cells being used? What is the service life of the linking equipment?
I have seen solar water heating systems all around the world. They ranged from barrels painted black to copper coils painted black behind glass. If solar energy is available year round wouldn’t a water heater be the first investment to take advantage of the free energy?
And what about metal roofs? Will a light colored metal roof significantly reduce the ac load in a house compared to dark shingles?The installers tell me their roofs are fat free, low sodium,and non habit forming, while high in anti-oxydents and self cleaning when it rains. I am considering replacing my ac unit with a more efficient model but the roof is 15 years old and may be a better place to throw the money right now.
. It is the payback based on the Obama subsidized rates!!!
Since when is Obama subsidized rates being paid to places like Canada, Mexico, Ireland and England??
I don’t know about all of those countries, but England just reduced theirs:
“From today, anyone installing solar panels will receive 16p per kilowatt hour of electricity generated, compared with 21p previously, and will receive the subsidy for 20 years instead of the 25-year duration that was formerly available.”
So 16 pence is about $0.25/kw-hr, pretty healthy.
@Mike All those other countries are doing the same thing as the USA and particularly California. The province of Ontario, Canada started with paying wind power providers 58 cents!!! per KWH Feed in Tariff (FIT), and it attracted a lot of “investors”. The situation got out of hand and now with a huge budget deficit the governmet is clawing back the FIT to 35 cents or so. The wind generators are threatening to sue, since their cosy plan was based on a guaranteed 20 year contract.
If you are used to 14 cent power, wind energy will never make any sense. It belongs in very isolated off-grid windy areas where the alternative is diesel generators. The Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence is a perfct example. Diesel power there is already 40 cents per KWH.
We can thank the Global Warming movement for this since they touted that wind and solar would do away with the need of fossil power generation. Not quite, but many European countries have set goals such as 20% of power from renewables by 2020. Even Germany can’t get there, and the whole expensive program is collapsing in Europe. It’s now called the Green Lunacy. Britain is importing wood from Canada and harvesting some of its own scarce forests to burn to generate enough “sustainable” power to get to the 20%.
More craziness. When the EU came out with their food-based biofuels mandate an analysis termed it ‘a crime against humanity’ for the impact on poorer countries.
@texases Exactly; the US corn ethanol program dramatically raised the price of tortillas in Mexico, which imports a lot of corn meal from the US.
When critical decisions are made based on some hypthesis and goverment edict rather than hard analysis and common sense we get ourselves into these nutty situations. I go out of my way to avoid buying gas with ethanol.
DeweyCheatumandHowe/Vanillaops/Rackspace is having network-access problems.
It is not the cost of the Kilowatt but the access to that kilowatt that is now important. I alluded to the fact that PNW dams built by the Corps Engineers and BPA transmission lines was informative and extensive-they are no longer.
I repeat. Our greatest asset is the Grid(s) and it is also our greatest weakness. Distributed power is a solution to some of the issues of the Grid.
Most “statistics” published on the internet are just pulled out of someones rear end…
When you try to disparage wind power by quoting costs, you must consider the costs of continuing to use coal as our main source of electrical power…it’s at lot more than just the kilowatt-hour rate…