GH

Green Energy Prospecting: Eye on Ocean Power Technologies

Stan,

Good to see someone noticing OPT. I can't quite praise your article as strongly as others have - frankly I think you need some help with your editing/proofreading process - but it inspired a response from "Alt Energy Analyst" that was outstanding in its accuracy and scope, IMHO. Also, NickGogerty's response led me to his blog, which is the first place I've seen a decent comparison of true costs of energy generation. We constantly hear "wind costs 6 cents/kwh, coal costs 4 cents", etc. - and this sort of information, while it is constantly repeated in the mass media, is a great example of lying by omission. Without a stated payback period, a given energy generation cost is utterly meaningless. For example, in the second year of operation, a coal plant's operating cost is almost entirely fuel cost. By that standard, wind, solar, geothermal, and ocean wave cost absolutely nothing. It is only by specifying a period over which construction costs are amortized, that a cost per kilowatt hour can be calculated.

So, thank you Stan for taking a first shot at analyzing OPT, and AltEnergyAnalyst and NickGogerty for extremely valuable responses.