SubsidyEye

Solar, Wind and Biofuels' Impressive Growth Surge in '08

Amitabha, I agree that the country needs more good engineers. But you shouldn't believe that with more engineers the policies would be much different than they are now. For one, there are around 38 senators from farm states. That gives biofuels a good head start in the political market. For another, I have known plenty of engineers who know little about economics (other than the economics of individual projects).

And I've known many engineers (and chemists) who just LOVE the challenge of the improbable. (Think ocean thermal energy conversion, for example.) The popularity of technologies which are primitive and of low density is not just a result of stupid policymakers, or green dreams: they are precisely the kinds of technologies that attract big research grants.

Solar, Wind and Biofuels' Impressive Growth Surge in '08

"Last year, the global biofuels market consisted of more than 19 billion gallons of ethanol and biodiesel production worldwide. In Brazil, ethanol from sugarcane surpassed petroleum use for the first time."

That was then, this is now:

royaldutchshellplc.com.../

"Brazil, the world’s leading producer of sugar and sugarcane-based ethanol, has seen billions of dollars poured into the industry during the past several years. As many as 200 sugar and ethanol mills have been created and were thriving during the periods of high gasoline prices. But now many mills are strapped for cash from the global credit crunch and face a shortage of funds to repay loans and for the working capital needed to survive."

Does Wind Power Produce More Carbon Emissions than Coal?

Um, could somebody provide a link to one or the other studies? It would seem hard to believe that the carbon emissions from wind turbines would be greater than those from a coal-fired power plant. But I imagine that the accounting depends on two key parameters for the wind plant. One relates to the concrete used in the base of each wind turbine which is about 0.3 cubic metres per kW of nominal capacity. What are the assumed carbon emissions involved in making that concrete, and does the life-cycle assessment assume that at the end of a turbine's life the same base will be used for a second wind turbine?

The second crucial parameter is the capacity factor of the wind turbine. The lower the capacity factor, the greater the emissions per MWh of electricity generated. Capacity factors for wind turbines tend to be around 30% (bwea.com/ref/capacityf...). For coal-fired power plants, the capacity factor is typically on the order of 75%. Hence its emissions are divided over 2.5 times the number of kWh of a farm of wind turbines of the same nominal capacity.

Still, I'd like to see the numbers before I'm convinced that wind turbines generate more GHG emissions per kWh than coal-fired power plants.

Wind Power: What We Can Learn from Denmark

Comment on Candooman's comment:

"He [Obama] just has to make sure the power lines, steel towers, etc. (materials) should be made in the USA."

Um, unless this infrastructure is actually procurred by, and remains in the posession of the government (and even then, it would be subject to the USA's obligations under the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement), there is no way that Obama can stipulate that all the goods are made in the USA and not run the risk of a challenge from another WTO member. That said, whether the steel for the towers is domestic made or imported, the increased demand on the world market could be enough to raise steel prices -- good for steel makers everywhere, but not necessarily for other industries.