[cdn-nucl-l] Canada, National Post, Wind power is a complete disaster

["Jerry Cuttler" <jerrycuttler@rogers.com>]

Interesting article.  In late February, wind power had an 83% social 
acceptance in Canada.
The Ontario government is building gas-fired power plants to keep the lights 
on when the wind stops.

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=1479461

Wind power is a complete disaster

Michael J. Trebilcock,  Financial Post

Published: Thursday, April 09, 2009

There is no evidence that industrial wind power is likely to have a 
significant impact on carbon emissions. The European experience is 
instructive. Denmark, the world's most wind-intensive nation, with more than 
6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single 
fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover 
wind power's unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions 
have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).

Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company 
ELSAM (one of Denmark's largest energy utilities) tells us that "wind 
turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions." The German experience is 
no different. Der Spiegel reports that "Germany's CO2 emissions haven't been 
reduced by even a single gram," and additional coal-and gas-fired plants 
have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery.

Indeed, recent academic research shows that wind power may actually increase 
greenhouse gas emissions in some cases, depending on the carbon-intensity of 
back-up generation required because of its intermittent character. On the 
negative side of the environmental ledger are adverse impacts of industrial 
wind turbines on birdlife and other forms of wildlife, farm animals, 
wetlands and viewsheds.

Industrial wind power is not a viable economic alternative to other energy 
conservation options. Again, the Danish experience is instructive. Its 
electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to 
Ontario's current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of 
Industries says, "windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense." 
Aase Madsen , the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it 
"a terribly expensive disaster."

The U. S. Energy Information Administration reported in 2008, on a dollar 
per MWh basis, the U. S. government subsidizes wind at $23.34 -- compared to 
reliable energy sources: natural gas at 25¢; coal at 44¢; hydro at 67¢; and 
nuclear at $1.59, leading to what some U. S. commentators call "a huge 
corporate welfare feeding frenzy." The Wall Street Journal advises that 
"wind generation is the prime example of what can go wrong when the 
government decides to pick winners."

The Economist magazine notes in a recent editorial, "Wasting Money on 
Climate Change," that each tonne of emissions avoided due to subsidies to 
renewable energy such as wind power would cost somewhere between $69 and 
$137, whereas under a cap-and-trade scheme the price would be less than $15.

Either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system creates incentives for 
consumers and producers on a myriad of margins to reduce energy use and 
emissions that, as these numbers show, completely overwhelm subsidies to 
renewables in terms of cost effectiveness.

The Ontario Power Authority advises that wind producers will be paid 13.5¢/ 
kwh (more than twice what consumers are currently paying), even without 
accounting for the additional costs of interconnection, transmission and 
backup generation. As the European experience confirms, this will inevitably 
lead to a dramatic increase in electricity costs with consequent detrimental 
effects on business and employment. From this perspective, the government's 
promise of 55,000 new jobs is a cruel delusion.

A recent detailed analysis (focusing mainly on Spain) finds that for every 
job created by state-funded support of renewables, particularly wind energy, 
2.2 jobs are lost. Each wind industry job created cost almost $2-million in 
subsidies. Why will the Ontario experience be different?

In debates over climate change, and in particular subsidies to renewable 
energy, there are two kinds of green. First there are some environmental 
greens who view the problem as so urgent that all measures that may have 
some impact on greenhouse gas emissions, whatever their cost or their impact 
on the economy and employment, should be undertaken immediately.

Then there are the fiscal greens, who, being cool to carbon taxes and 
cap-and-trade systems that make polluters pay, favour massive public 
subsidies to themselves for renewable energy projects, whatever their 
relative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. These two groups are motivated 
by different kinds of green. The only point of convergence between them is 
their support for massive subsidies to renewable energy (such as wind 
turbines).

This unholy alliance of these two kinds of greens (doomsdayers and rent 
seekers) makes for very effective, if opportunistic, politics (as reflected 
in the Ontario government's Green Energy Act), just as it makes for lousy 
public policy: Politicians attempt to pick winners at our expense in a 
fast-moving technological landscape, instead of creating a socially 
efficient set of incentives to which we can all respond.

-Michael J. Trebilcock is Professor of Law and Economics, University of 
Toronto. These comments were excerpted from a submission last night to the 
Ontario government's legislative committee On Bill 150.
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